


A Proper Duchess

by skarlatha



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, And Daryl Waltzes the Heck Out of Him, Ballroom Dancing, Bottom Rick, But Not a Story ABOUT Mpreg, Duke!Daryl, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Rick Totally Has Permission to Waltz, Rickyl Writers' Group, Virgin!Rick, You Guys Asked for a Trope Fic and You're Getting a Trope Fic Y'all, mentions of mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5280362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His Grace Daryl Dixon, the Duke of Bettsville, is betrothed to Miss Lori Grimes, to the surprise and elation of the wealthy but untitled Grimes family. Then, when Lori falls in love with a mysterious stranger and elopes to Scotland with him, her brother Richard agrees to take her place as the Duke's betrothed. But it's just supposed to be a marriage of convenience, to honor the contract his family signed with the Duke. They're not supposed to fall in love. But when Daryl asks Rick to dance, the world fades away until it's just them, and suddenly things don't seem as convenient anymore. Will the mysterious Duke finally find his perfect Duchess? And will pure, innocent Richard Grimes take a chance on the greatest journey of all--love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Sudden Engagement

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the Rickyl Writers Group Challenge to create a fic based on a trope. I chose “Regency AU,” intending to write a short story of about 5,000 words or so and then post it to the challenge. Now, months later, it’s 53k and finally ready for its society debut! Thanks so much to the [Rickyl Writers Group](http://rickylwritersgroup.tumblr.com/) (which you can totally join!) for all your support and encouragement while I was working on this beast (especially [MermaidSheenaz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mermaidsheenaz), [MaroonCamaro](http://archiveofourown.org/users/marooncamaro), and [hamiltrashed](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hamiltrashed), who all shrieked in happiness every time I gave them a snippet)!
> 
> A few notes: First of all, this fic is intentionally over-the-top and ridiculous because it is written in the style of a traditional romance novel. Therefore, some characters and actions may seem OOC, and that’s intentional to fit the trope. However, I do still believe that I’ve written them true to the core of the characters, or at least to how the characters might act if they’d grown up in a world like this.
> 
> About this world… I have a _ridiculously_ detailed headcanon about how this society works, and I’ll be happy to discuss it with you if you want! You can message me on [Tumblr](http://skarlatha.tumblr.com/) with questions. But otherwise, I think I’ll just drop you guys into the world and let you figure it out. It’s fun that way :)
> 
> And finally, this fic would not have been possible without my amazing wonderful betas, [Michelle_A_Emerlind](http://archiveofourown.org/users/michelle_a_emerlind) and [TWDObsessive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/twdobsessive), who provided much more than just proofreading and editing. They also provided massive cheerleading, pep-talks, and sounding boards, and on more than one occasion they teamed up to prevent me from just deleting this whole thing in a snit. So really, they worked just about as hard on this fic as I did and I shall share every single kudo with them. P.S. Our approved ship names are MAElatha and Skarlessive, if you were curious. :)

When the Grimes family housekeeper, Mrs. Deanna Monroe, bursts into Rick’s bedroom, Rick is certain that the house is on fire and they will all certainly perish. It seemed so, at least, based on the level of panic in the woman’s voice.

“Mister Richard,” the housekeeper exclaims. “Your father needs you in the drawing room. Make haste!”

Rick sits up straight in bed, clutching at his heart and willing it to calm down. “What is the matter, Mrs. Monroe?”

“It’s your sister,” the woman says, crossing the room and tugging on Rick’s arm until he climbs out of bed, letting out little grunts of protest and trying to keep his legs covered for decency’s sake.

“Lori?” Rick asks, only a little stupidly because of course he only has one sister. “Is she unwell?”

“In the head, possibly,” Mrs. Monroe answers. She grabs Rick’s heavy silver hairbrush and advances on him, but Rick holds up his hands and wards her off. “She’s well enough, I suppose. But your father will tell you everything. It’s not my place to say.”

Rick sighs heavily. “Send my valet in and tell Father I’ll be down with all haste,” he tells the housekeeper after a moment. She leaves the room in a flurry of skirts and Rick sits down heavily on the edge of his bed while he waits for Shane to come help him with his clothing and, more to the point, with his birdsnest of curly brown hair that must always be tamed before he can be seen in public.

It takes twenty minutes to get Rick dressed and to get his hair manhandled into some semblance of respectability, and by the time he gets to the drawing room, Col. Abraham Grimes is already in full rant, yelling at the woman who’s sitting on the sofa with her hands primly folded in her lap. She’s a lovely older lady wearing a beautiful rose-colored morning dress, her hair skillfully done up in a tight, deceptively simple bun, and Rick vaguely recognizes her as Lady Jacqui Douglas, who had recently come to London to find spouses for her sons.

“--don’t know what you’ve been teaching your boys, but this simply is not done,” Abraham is bellowing. “What sort of man just… just _sweeps off_ in the dead of night with good, respectable ladies? Carries them off to Gretna Green without so much as a word to their worried fathers?”

“Col. Grimes,” Lady Douglas says, her voice even and careful. “Losing your temper will not change the facts in the matter. We must simply accept what has happened and move on from--”

“Accept what has happened?” Abraham interrupts. “ _Accept_ what has happened? My daughter was to be a _duchess_ , Lady Douglas. A _duchess_. Do you know how hard I worked to secure that betrothal for her? Do you know?”

Rick clears his throat awkwardly in the doorway, and both people turn to look at him. Lady Douglas’s face is still serene and calm, while Abraham’s moustache seems to be making a valiant effort to fling itself off his face and start pummeling someone. “Good morning, Lady Douglas,” Rick says, bowing politely.

Jacqui opens her mouth to respond, but Abraham cuts them both off. “Good morning my sweaty bollocks,” he grumbles, the words punctuated by audible horrified gasping from both Lady Douglas and Rick, but Abraham pays them no mind. “A _good_ morning would have been if my daughter had made it to the altar and started passing around calling cards with ‘Duchess of Bettsville’ imprinted on them. Not run off to Scotland with the _second son_ of a _baron_.”

“Perhaps we can go after them?” Rick suggests. “They may not have gotten far. We can bring them back before anyone knows.”

“And when she turns up with child and it’s _obviously_ not Dixon’s? We’d never survive the scandal.” Abraham moves his top lip so that his moustache wriggles angrily.

Rick blinks several times, rapidly. “Surely she won’t be…” He trails off, then clears his throat as quietly as he can manage. “Surely she will not be with child _already_.”

Lady Douglas sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “There is the possibility, however slight.”

Abraham grunts in agreement and glares at nothing in particular. “And with a man like Dixon, the possibility is enough to break off the engagement.”

That starts up the argument again, with Abraham speaking on the borderline of yelling and Lady Douglas shooting back retorts in a maddeningly calm tone. Rick sighs and looks around the room for something else to focus on and his eyes fall on an opened letter lying on the sideboard. He walks over and opens it up.

_Father--forgive me. I wanted nothing more than to bring honor to the family by marrying Lord Dixon, but I cannot. I love Theodore, Father, and we will be happy together. You will see. One day I hope you will allow us back into the family. I love you both and look forward to greeting you when we return to London as Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Douglas._

Rick drops the letter back onto the sideboard and repeats Jacqui’s motion of squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the top of his nose. He remembers Theodore from a few of the balls that the family had attended, although he isn’t sure they had ever been formally introduced. In fact, when he thinks of it, he’s not even certain that Theodore and _Lori_ had ever been formally introduced.

The _scandal_.

There’s a sharp rap on the door of the drawing room, and Rick snaps his attention to the door at the same time that Abraham and Jacqui drop off into dead silence. After a moment, the butler, Mr. Leon Basset, walks in and bows respectfully. “His Grace Daryl Dixon, Duke of Bettsville,” Basset announces.

“Mother dick,” Abraham mutters under his breath, but nods at the butler. “Show him in, of course.”

“I must be going,” Lady Douglas murmurs, standing up from the sofa and gathering her clutch purse. “I will send word if I hear from my Theodore.”

Lady Douglas quickly leaves the room, and then Daryl Dixon walks in.

//

It’s not the first time Rick has seen Lord Dixon. After all, the duke had been betrothed to Rick’s sister, so he’d been in this very drawing room with the man on several occasions, engaging in polite but boring conversation befitting their ranks. But even during those visits, he’d rarely actually spoken directly to the duke.

In fact, Daryl had talked very little to _anyone_ during those conversations, instead letting his eyes rest on the window as he gazed out into the world. Rick had followed that gaze once, stayed along with it as it flowed past the garden outside, past the street full of society members taking strolls, past Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and over the Thames and the Tower and farther out, into the countryside beyond London until it lost Rick somewhere in the forests of Warwickshire, somewhere dark and secret and mysterious like the duke himself.

But this time, Daryl’s eyes are locked on Abraham, and they aren’t wistful and nostalgic. No, they are _angry_.

“Your Grace,” Abraham starts. “We were not expecting you. Miss Grimes is indisposed at the moment--”

“I’m sure she is,” Daryl interrupts. “I hear the weather in Scotland is lovely this time of year.”

The silence in the room is thick and heavy like a suit of armor and Rick stays in his corner by the sideboard and tries to look small, resisting the urge to draw attention to himself by self-consciously smoothing out his waist coat. He sends a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens that he’d had Shane dress him appropriately instead of just throwing on a dressing gown and answering his father’s summons as quickly as possible, but honestly nothing in his wardrobe holds a candle to the sleek, immaculately tailored tailcoat that hugs Lord Dixon’s arms and broad shoulders like the morning mist clings to the Earth. Daryl’s cravat is immaculate as well, starched and tied so intricately that Rick is sure that Shane would fall to his knees if he could see it, and Rick cannot even let himself _consider_ the duke’s pantaloons because he isn’t entirely certain that the law allows a gentleman’s thighs to look quite so mouthwatering right here in public.

Rick flushes and looks down at his own buckskins and wishes he’d worn his nice green breeches instead. The last time that Lord Dixon had come calling on Lori, Rick had been wearing these same buckskins, although they had of course been laundered since then. And the time before that…

Rick’s face goes progressively paler as he tries to remember each time the duke had come to visit and whether he’d just happened to be wearing these same buckskins every time.

Oh, heavens. He had, hadn’t he?

Rick stares down at the floor, fixing his eyes on a black piece of the rug that makes up the center of a flower, and he wills it to turn into a cavernous hole and swallow him up before the Duke of Bettsville notices that Rick apparently only has one single pair of pants.

“We don’t believe they’ve been gone for long,” Abraham is saying when Rick cues back in to the conversation. “We’re preparing a search party to find them. We can bring her back before anyone knows what has happened.”

Daryl shrugs, brushing a speck from the arm of his tailcoat. “It matters very little to me whether you catch her before they marry or not,” he says, his voice low and rough, reminding Rick of silly things like Gothic romance novels and the stones that make up Westminster, like tremors on his skin and what it must be like to be ravished in a shadowed corner. Rick shivers, and Daryl flicks his eyes over to him at the movement but quickly returns his fiery gaze to Abraham. “I consider her decision to leave town with Mr. Douglas as her decision to cry off. I trust you won’t stand in my way when I move to dissolve the betrothal contract.”

“Now, Your Grace,” Abraham pleads. “No one knows about this yet, and Lori is a respectable young lady. She won’t have… ah… sullied herself. Not before they get to Scotland. So if we just catch them before they get there--”

“No,” Daryl says with quiet authority.

“But Lord Dixon--”

“ _No_ ,” Daryl says again. “The decision is made. You know the position my family is in. I need a spouse who is above reproach. And your servants know she’s gone, which means that all of London will know by mid-morning.”

Abraham and his moustache both deflate. “Very well,” he says quietly. “I suppose you’ll want to keep the dowry.”

Daryl shrugs again, his shoulders rolling gracefully, and Rick _knows_ he shouldn’t be thinking such impure thoughts about the man, especially not in such a circumstance, but he can’t help the little puff of breath that escapes his lips at the sight of it. “It’s already invested, so it would be a damn thorn in my side to get it back out of the investments. And in any case, you forfeited claim to it when you didn’t keep your daughter reined in.” He sighs heavily and his hand twitches at his side like it wants to lift to his face. “God, I’m going to have to talk to more people. Find another spouse. I _hate_ this, Grimes. You’ve done me a great disservice here.”

Abraham frowns, then looks over at Rick with a rather unsettling gleam in his eye. “Richard is very respectable,” he murmurs, then smiles and looks back at Daryl, whose eyebrow is already raised. “Yes. Very respectable indeed. Are you acquainted with my son, Dixon?”

“A little,” Daryl says, his eyebrow dropping back down and then following its counterpart into a furrow. “What are you suggesting?”

Rick blinks and his feet move to make a hasty retreat, but Abraham is too fast, crossing the room like the rug is on fire and grabbing Rick by the arm. He tugs Rick over closer to Daryl. “My son, Richard. He’s above reproach. That’s what you needed, right? Richard will make a proper duchess, mark my words.”

“I marked your words once before, Grimes, and we see where it got me,” Daryl grumbles, but he turns his gaze on to Rick, giving him a dispassionate once-over that Rick has seen his father give to horses before buying them. He wonders if the duke will want to check his teeth as well.

“He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he?” Abraham says, beaming. “He’s an accomplished gentleman. He’s had the best dancing instructors, and he paints with watercolors. He’s excellent at card games and he plays the pianoforte--”

_Very ill indeed_ , Rick thinks, cringing inwardly at the memory of the last time he’d tried to play in public--

“--and most importantly, he’s never had a whiff of scandal associated with him. Not one whiff.”

Daryl is still watching Rick, running his eyes over him thoughtfully, and--oh merciful heavens, is he staring at Rick’s pants? Does he _know_ that they’re the same? Rick bites down on the inside of his cheek to try and keep from whimpering in shame.

Finally, Daryl looks back at Abraham. “He’s been courting Miss Anderson.”

“ _Very_ respectfully,” Abraham insists. “And not very seriously. That can be ended quickly and without any scandal. Not a whiff. It was a passing fancy at best. No promises exchanged. Not even a whiff of a promise. No whiffs. None.”

Daryl slides his eyes back over to Rick. “Do you sing?” he asks.

“Only if I’m made to,” Rick says, and Abraham looks as if he’s going to have an apoplectic fit but, luckily, Daryl lets out a nose-breath that sounds… amused? Dear Lord, Rick certainly hopes it’s amused.

“Do you hunt?” Daryl’s eyes meet Rick’s, still appraising but with a spark of something else that Rick’s not sure about.

“Oh, he hunts, alright,” Abraham crows, clapping Rick on the shoulder. “Rides like he was born in the saddle. Shoots better than half the officers I know. More than half. He’s a crack shot.”

“Father,” Rick murmurs, the red in his cheeks threatening to catch fire.

“With a gun or with a bow?” Daryl presses, his eyes still locked with Rick’s.

Rick reaches up to rub the back of his own neck. “Um… both? Although I do not have as much experience with a bow.”

Daryl nods, and Rick can’t help but feel like he’s passed some sort of test. “I can teach you,” he says, then finally breaks eye contact and looks back at Abraham. “Very well. I’ll take him.”

Abraham’s eyes light up and Rick blinks several times rapidly. “Your Grace?” Rick asks, but he’s not entirely sure what the question is, so he lets it hang in the air.

Daryl reaches out and pats Abraham’s arm briefly. “Make the changes to the contract and send it to me. I’ll take care of the rest of the arrangements.” He looks back at Rick and bows a quick, informal bow. “I’ll see you at the ball tonight, I expect?”

Rick nods, his throat dry and unstable, and Daryl turns and leaves the room. There’s silence for a few seconds, then the heavy click of the front door being closed behind the duke, and then Abraham grabs Rick’s arm hard and shoves him down into a chair, crossing his arms and towering over his son.

“Richard, I swear on a stack of Bibles that if you run off with someone or do something scandalous or even so much as _look_ at someone else in the duke’s presence, I’ll wring your neck like a chicken.”

“Yes, Father,” Rick says, blinking again to see if he can get his eyes to focus correctly. Ten minutes ago he was Mr. Richard Grimes, who would probably end up with an aggressively bland and proper marriage to Miss Anderson and live out the rest of his life in a cottage in the countryside, and now… holiest of heavens, now he’s going to be a _duchess_.

“I need you to go practice your dancing. I’ll have the instructor over here in an hour.” Abraham crosses the room over to his desk and starts pulling out paper and quills. “And have Mrs. Monroe make room for new clothing in your wardrobe. You’ll have to look the part of a man who’s being wooed by a duke, which means new clothing.” He flicks his eyes over at Rick and frowns, his moustache quivering with disdain. “Do not wear those buckskins again in his presence, do you understand?”

“Yes, Father,” Rick says again, smoothing his hands self-consciously over his pants. _Lady Dixon_ , he thinks, imagining how the name will look in his own hand when he signs letters. Lady Richard Dixon. Richard Morgan Dixon, Duchess of Bettsville.

Duchess. Of Bettsville.

Rick Dixon.

Rick smiles softly and lets his world shift on its axis as he moves his future in his mind, from a small cottage to a manor house, from a Mister to a Lady, from a soft blonde woman who does nothing for his loins to a muscular dark-haired man who _does_. Abraham continues ranting in the background about pin money and tailors and archery lessons, but Rick’s mind is miles away, finding its home in the Forest of Arden and, possibly, in the quiet thunder-blue eyes of a duke.


	2. A Startling Request

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving to my American peeps! May this chapter give you something to read when you're 100% done with family togetherness and need a short break from it all. For my non-American readers, hope you have a great day as well!
> 
> Also, I forgot to mention my posting schedule for this fic. I've added it to the beginning notes, but it is Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. You may recognize this as the same schedule as [A Spade of Truth](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4898878) by my lovely beta/domestic partner Michelle_A_Emerlind. If you're not reading this fic, I don't even know what to tell you. It's phenomenal, and if you've been looking at it and thinking "Wow, that's way too weird of an AU" then, well... look at what you're reading now :)

As the carriage trundles through the streets toward Lord Stookey’s house, Rick’s leg takes on a mind of its own, jiggling up and down from its position crossed atop his other leg. He stares out the window, watching the streetlamps pass by and trying to calm himself by counting the hoofbeats from the horses.

“Stop fidgeting,” Abraham snaps from his seat opposite Rick in the carriage. “You’re giving my _nerves_ nerves.”

Rick sighs and uncrosses his legs, planting both feet on the floor and willing them to stay still. He’d spent the first half of the afternoon daydreaming about his life with the duke and the last half of it reminding himself that this was not a love match, that he was only chosen as the next Duchess of Bettsville because, well… because he’d been there in the drawing room and Lord Dixon wasn’t inclined to spend time courting someone new.

Well, that and because Lori had fallen in love with Mr. Douglas. Rick likes Mr. Douglas. He likes him quite a bit. In fact, he thinks to himself, Mr. Douglas might possibly be his second-favorite person in the world on this, the most beautiful summer night Rick has ever had the joy to witness. Mr. Douglas is a fine, upstanding gentleman and because he’s such a lovely man, Rick will soon get to have his calling cards reprinted, his new name embossed on the heavy cards in black and silver ink, the envy of all his friends.

And Daryl… Rick sighs happily. He hasn’t been given permission to call the duke by his Christian name yet, but that will come. Surely once they’re married, they will be Rick and Daryl instead of Mr. Grimes and Lord Dixon. _Daryl_ , he thinks, then practices the scenes in his head, from _Oh, Daryl, there you are, darling_ to _Daryl, can you pass the butter dish?_ and all the way to the most intimate of all: _Good night, Daryl._ Rick smiles, letting his mind wander to the end of that particular scene, with the duke sliding his hands up Rick’s arms and leaning in for a kiss before bedtime.

A sharp rap on his knee jars Rick’s thoughts away from his future marriage bed, and he looks up at Abraham. “Don’t worry about speaking with Miss Anderson. I’ll talk to her mother and smoothe things over. Matter of fact, don’t speak to her at all. No dancing with her, either. Above reproach, Richard. Above. Reproach.”

“Yes, Father,” Rick murmurs.

Abraham leans back against his seat and then seems to think better of it. He reaches forward and pats Rick’s knee gently on the same place he’d smacked it a few moments before. “I’m proud of you, son. Managed to secure yourself a duke.”

Rick meets Abraham’s eyes and can’t stop a ridiculous smile from creeping onto his face. “Thank you, Father. I’m sure we will be very happy together.”

“You will be. Just don’t forget your old father when you move to your castle,” Abraham says, giving Rick’s knee one more pat before leaning back again.

Rick shakes his head, his thoughts slipping back to the marriage bed. Where things will happen. He really can’t imagine what those “things” will be, but he’s sure there will be things. Even in a marriage of convenience, there are always at least some things.

“Father,” Rick asks after a moment of deep thought. “What happens between men on their wedding nights?”

Even in the dim light of the streetlamps from outside the carriage, Abraham’s flush is visible, turning his skin the same color as his moustache. “You don’t need to worry about it. It will all make sense when the time comes.”

Rick furrows his brow, gazing out the window at the fancy houses they’re passing. “Is it a special kind of kissing?” he asks.

Abraham grunts. “You could say that.”

“Does--”

“Richard,” Abraham cuts in, shooting him a very distinct no-nonsense look. “You knowing anything at all about marital relations before Dixon puts you in his bed would constitute a whiff of scandal. And you’re aware of how many whiffs of scandal you’re allowed during this betrothal.”

Rick frowns. “None.”

“Precisely. No whiffs.” The carriage stops, and the driver swings the door open for them. Abraham pauses before getting out and blocks Rick’s exit with his beefy arm. “Do not lose this engagement, Richard. This engagement is the only reason we’re not being eaten alive by society because of what Lori did. He could have ruined us for it but instead he’s marrying you. Don’t forget that, son. This is important.”

Nodding solemnly, Rick brushes his father’s arm aside and climbs out of the carriage.

//

It takes Rick’s circle of friends no more than three minutes to descend upon him when he enters the ballroom, all rushing toward him with bright eyes and insufferable smirks. Miss Carol Horvath is the ringleader, as usual, and the others trail behind her: Miss Tara Chambler, Miss Sasha Williams, and Mr. Glenn Rhee. They gather in tight formation around Rick, Carol immediately latching on to his arm to prevent him from escaping, and Rick is at once thankful that they’re blocking him from all of the curious eyes directed at the future Duchess of Bettsville and slightly concerned at the fact that the half-circle around him is keeping him _in_ as much as it’s keeping the eyes _out_.

“What were you _thinking_ , Richard?” Carol says, hitting him on the arm with the practiced motion she’d developed over their years of friendship--the one that looks light and playful to onlookers but actually stings quite dreadfully. “Sending me news of your _betrothal_ in a _note_? Instead of coming to tell me yourself?”

“I knew you would be here tonight,” Rick points out. “And besides, Father didn’t want me leaving the house until the contract was signed. Just in case I had a whim to run away with a stableboy.”

Tara chuckles a little at that. “Your sister must be light in the head, running off from a _duke_.”

“To marry the _second son of a baron_ ,” Rick points out. “But it was very good for me that she did that. Because now…” He trails off for a moment and puffs out his chest for his big announcement, not that anyone is unaware of the development. “I’m to be a _duchess_.”

Everyone sighs happily except for Carol, who hits him again. “You should have told us that you and the duke were having a flirtation.”

“We weren’t!” Rick insists. “He came over to speak to my father this morning about dissolving his contract with Lori. I simply happened to be in the room, and I was more convenient than courting a new betrothed.”

Glenn looks slightly crestfallen. “So this isn’t a love match.”

Rick sighs, feeling something sad burrow down into the pit of his stomach. “No. It’s just a match.” He lets himself wallow in self-pity for just the barest moment, then raises his head to look around the ballroom. “Is he here?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Sasha says. “But the night is still early. Did he say he would be attending?”

“Yes.” Rick smoothes his navy-blue waistcoat and adjusts his cravat. “Yes, he said he would be here.”

Tara lays a hand briefly on Rick’s arm. “Then he’ll be here. Oh, Rick. This is so exciting! To think, I’m to be friends with a duchess. Perhaps that will put me in the path of other rich men.”

“Or other rich, titled women,” Carol says, smirking, and Tara laughs and nods.

“There are three waltzes on the list tonight,” Sasha points out, her dark eyes twinkling at Rick. “Perhaps the duke will claim your hand for one of them.”

“He will not ask me to dance at all,” Rick says, ducking his head a bit and looking up at Sasha through his eyelashes. “This is a marriage of convenience. And even if he did wish to dance, we certainly would not _waltz_.”

“That’s true,” Tara says, nodding hard enough to dislodge the curled tendrils of hair arranged artfully around her face. “A marriage of convenience warrants a quadrille at best.”

“ _At best_ ,” Rick agrees, and then there’s an audible gasp from his friend group mere moments before he feels strong fingers curve on his shoulder.

“Mr. Grimes,” a deep voice practically purrs from behind him. “Have you permission to waltz?”

Rick’s mouth goes dry and his shoulder starts to tingle where Daryl’s warm hand is touching. He turns slowly around to face the duke, trying to keep his wildly pounding heart in check as his eyes meet Daryl’s brilliant blue gaze. “I…”

“Yes, he has permission,” Carol says from behind Rick. “And he would love nothing better than to save the next one for you.”

Daryl’s lips curve up at one corner. He doesn’t look at Carol, just continues holding Rick’s gaze with burning irises. “Do you always let your friends speak for you?”

Rick blinks a few times rapidly, and it’s enough to break the spell Daryl has put him under. “Only when I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the offer.”

Daryl’s half-smile slips back into a neutral state and some of the strange heat leaches from his eyes. “No need for gratitude. You are my betrothed. It’s expected that I dance with you.”

“Then I will express my delight instead,” Rick mumbles, feeling his cheeks heat up with both excitement at Daryl’s offer and shame at his own verbal mistake.

Daryl nods at him and bows stiffly, and Rick drops into the half-curtsy that’s expected of men who are being wooed. And before Rick can fully straighten his knees again, Daryl is gone, melted back into the crowd.

Rick whirls around and stares, wide-eyed, at the group around him. “He…” he starts, but he can’t finish the sentence and so he just waves surreptitiously in the general direction of where Daryl had been standing. “He. He? _He_. Oh my god.”

“You’re going to get to _waltz_ with the _duke_ ,” Glenn breathes.

“ _I know_ ,” Rick says, just barely resisting the urge to bounce on his toes. “Oh heavens. What if I forget the steps? I haven’t… I haven’t _practiced_. Father told me I should practice and I didn’t listen to him.”

“Just let him lead,” Carol tells him. “This is Lord Dixon. They say his innards are made of ice, you know. He won’t lose his nerve. He will remember the steps. And all you have to do is let him dance you.”

Rick swallows hard and looks out at the dance floor, where another country dance is starting, the dancers lined up in two rows facing each other. Jessie is there, smiling prettily at a slender dark-haired man that Rick doesn’t recognize, and that makes him feel a little better, that she seems to be moving on from their half-hearted attempt at courtship with very little heartache. Lord Greene, a handsome woman with piercing green eyes, comes over to their group and takes Glenn’s hand to lead him out to the dance floor, and Sasha ends up out there too, attempting to look pleasant even though her partner is a round-faced vicar with a too-jovial laugh and beady, calculating eyes.

And then Daryl sweeps onto the dance floor, a pretty blonde girl that Rick recognizes as Miss Amy Harrison on his arm. Rick narrows his eyes at her and sets his jaw as he watches them line up opposite one another, Daryl’s lips slipping into an easy smile as he bows to Amy and then moves into the steps of the dance with a grace that makes Rick want to whimper.

Carol’s elbow jabs into Rick’s side. “Don’t glare. It’s unbecoming of a future duchess.”

Rick huffs but forces his features back into a relaxed, neutral-pleasant expression. “Why is he dancing with her?”

“Because Lord Harrison won’t let him alone until he dances with her sister,” Carol says. “And besides, you’ve already secured him. It doesn’t matter who he dances with now, as long as he holds up his end of the contract and marries you in the end.”

Rick catches himself before his eyes narrow again. “It doesn’t matter. You’re right.”

The dancers move in circles, weaving in and out of each other, and Rick can’t stop himself from following Daryl’s movements--the slide of his feet, the slope of his shoulders, the careful steps that would look much more at home in a forest but somehow match the atmosphere of a ballroom as well. He’s breathtaking, and Rick gets to marry him. Conveniently.

But Miss Amy Harrison is _dancing_ with him, and Rick wonders if his own eyeballs have taken on a mossy tint as a result.

Rick tries to stop paying attention, he really does. He turns determinedly toward Carol and Tara, trying very hard to care about their conversation about some new opera being performed in the city but not managing it terribly well since his thoughts kept straying to a certain mysterious duke and the way Daryl had once kissed Lori’s knuckles. Lord, just _thinking_ about Daryl’s lips on his own hand nearly gives Rick a fit of the vapors, and there would come a day--very soon, in fact--when Daryl’s lips were going to be touching _Rick’s_ lips, and there’s no way that could result in anything less than a crumpled heap of boneless Richard on the floor of the church, right there in front of literally God and everyone.

“Oh my god,” Rick breathes, “I’m going to have _babies_ with him.”

Carol lets out a very elegant laugh. “Yes, you are, darling.” She reaches over and pats his belly briefly. “Beautiful little blue-eyed babies.”

“Carol,” Rick says, clutching at her arm. “Carol, I don’t even know _how_ \--”

And then he breaks off as Daryl completes the end of a circuit and catches his eye deliberately, his gaze smouldering and hot like volcanic glass, and Rick suddenly can’t breathe.

“Bloody hell,” Rick manages to gasp. “I think I’m going to faint.”

Carol smacks his arm. “Stop being so dramatic,” she snaps at him, managing to sound firm and no-nonsense while leaving her well-rehearsed fashionable smile on her face. “If you can’t even look at him across a ballroom, how will you manage to have relations with him?”

“ _Carol_ ,” Rick wheezes.

“Very well,” Carol says, looking around and then tugging him toward the refreshment table. “Perhaps some inexcusably weak lemonade will soothe your poor nerves.”

//

It doesn’t.

If anything, it just makes Rick need to use the washroom. So when the next dance starts up--a cotillion and not The Waltz--Rick snatches Glenn from a small circle of people who are deep into a discussion of the best cobbler in London and drags him out of the ballroom and down the hallway until they find the designated powder room for men. Rick gets them inside, snarls somewhat menacingly at awkward, bespectacled Mr. Mamet to encourage the young man to leave the room with all haste, and then closes the door and wedges an ornate wooden chair under the handle.

Glenn stares at him, wide-eyed and with his mouth hanging open ever-so-slightly. “Are you alright, Rick?”

“No,” Rick says. He leans against the wall and tugs at his sunshine-yellow ascot absently, his throat working against the fabric as he swallows repeatedly. “I don’t know what to do. What do I _say_ to him, Glenn? We’re going to be _waltzing_ and it’s just going to be me and him, touching each other, _dancing_ with each other for _hours_ \--”

“--waltzes don’t last hours--”

“--and do you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to make an ass of myself.” Rick sighs heavily and walks behind one of the privacy partitions to start the process of relieving himself.

“Just… be yourself,” Glenn tells him. “This isn’t your first waltz, is it?”

“It’s my first time dancing the second part,” Rick says. “And besides, I’ve only even danced the _first_ part twice, at least outside of lessons.” He finishes what he needs to do and vows to not drink any more lemonade until after his dance with the duke.

“You did well, did you not?” Glenn points out, more an observation than a question despite the lilt at the final word. “During the two times.”

Rick comes out from behind the partition and joins Glenn at the mirror, where they both spend some time smoothing out their hair and ascots. “I didn’t, though,” he says after a moment. “The first time was with my cousin Edwin, and that was just because Father thought we needed to demonstrate that I’d been given permission to waltz. And the second time was at Lady Morales’s birthday ball last month, with Miss Anderson. Do you know what we talked about both of those times, Glenn? Do you?”

Glenn meets Rick’s eyes in the mirror. “What did you talk about?”

“Candlesticks.”

Glenn keeps looking at Rick’s reflection, clearly waiting on an elaboration. “Candlesticks?” he says after a moment.

Rick nods decisively. “Candlesticks.”

Glenn blinks. “...okay.”

“I cannot talk to _the Duke of Bettsville_ about _candlesticks_ , Glenn. I cannot.”

Sighing, Glenn turns around and leans against the wall. “Just let him talk, then,” he says after a moment.

Rick gives his heavily-slicked-back hair another ginger pat and then drops his arms to his sides, tugging at his jacket to straighten it. “Let him talk,” he repeats, as if this possibility had never occurred to him.

“Yeah,” Glenn says. “He’s a duke. Dukes always have stuff to say. Just let him do the talking.”

Nodding slowly, Rick stares into his own eyes in the mirror, wondering if his future babies will turn out with his own light-blue irises or Lord Dixon’s darker stormcloud ones, blue so dark in some lights that it’s almost navy and so bright in others that it puts the summer sky to shame.

“Let him talk,” Rick says again, more softly this time. “Yes. I can do that.”

//

The instant Rick re-emerges into the ballroom, Abraham’s huge sausage-fingers wrap around his upper arm, squeezing in there like an avalanche crushing dandelions in its wake. “Where have you been?” he growls at Rick, his moustache quivering with rage. “The duke has been looking for you.”

“He has?” Rick asks, only a little squeakily. He casts his eyes about for help only to find that all of his friends have abandoned him, and worse, that Lord Dixon is walking toward them, weaving through the crowd as if the people were trees and he was a great white stag in the midst of them. Rick’s gaze locks on him and his smelling salts burn in his coat pocket.

“Do not embarrass us, Richard,” Abraham hisses in his ear. “You remember the steps, don’t you? Three steps together, then turn and look at him, then--”

“I remember the steps, Father,” Rick murmurs back, trying not to move his lips because Daryl is _looking_ at them, he can tell even from this distance.

“Are you sure? Because you stepped on Edwin’s feet last--”

“I _remember the steps_ ,” Rick insists, hoping that he won’t turn out to be lying to his father.

“Richard, if you--”

“Lord Dixon!” Rick exclaims brightly, smiling at Daryl in a way that he hopes doesn’t look _too_ manic and ridiculous. Abraham immediately lets go of Rick’s arm and turns around to face Daryl.

“Bettsville, here’s my son,” Abraham practically bellows, his voice deep and overly jovial. He claps Rick on the back hard enough to force a little _oomph_ out of Rick’s lungs, then pushes him forward toward Daryl. “Richard, apologize to the duke for keeping him waiting.”

“I apologize, Lord Dixon,” Rick says, trying to look demure.

Daryl just nods. His eyes flicker down over Rick’s body and then back up to his face, and Rick wishes with all his heart that he knew how to read the duke’s eyes, because the expression in them is surely something _very_ important. Finally, after a long moment, Daryl holds out a gloved hand.

“Shall we, Mr. Grimes?” he says, finally letting their eyes meet like mirrored pools in the candlelit room. The first strains of the slow French waltz start up from the band, and the ballroom seems suddenly cramped, suddenly overwarm, suddenly cavernously empty all at once.

Rick swallows and puts his hand in Daryl’s.


	3. A Magical Waltz

The first three steps of the waltz are the last three steps Rick takes before his life changes entirely. They march side-by-side, Rick’s slightly damp gloved hand resting lightly in Daryl’s perfectly dry one, and then they turn gracefully to face one another. Their eyes lock as Daryl’s open hand falls to Rick’s waist like a homecoming and he twists the hand that’s holding Rick’s into a loose grip that makes Rick whimper, and then--merciful heavens--they’re _waltzing_.

Before, when Rick had waltzed with Cousin Edwin or with Miss Anderson, it had seemed rather intimate--close quarters, no exchange of partners, eye contact throughout. Hands directly on waists, bodies closer to each other than in any other style of dance allowed in the ballrooms of London. He’d understood then why it was something that needed regulation and permission, but honestly, he hadn’t seen what the fuss was about.

But this… this is _scandalous_.

Even though the postures and the steps are the same as they’d been with the others, this time it’s _so_ intimate that it’s almost obscene. Daryl’s gloved hand is hot on his waist, embers burning into the skin of his hip even through several layers of clothing, and he’s close enough to see _everything_ \--the lines on Daryl’s lips, the swoop of his eyelashes, the beauty mark just above his mouth that Rick wants to press his own lips against.

And the duke’s _eyes_. It’s a lucky thing that the waltz requires eye contact, because Rick is certain that he wouldn’t be able to break it if he tried. He finds himself lost in Daryl, in eyes like watercolors and he wonders just what shade of paint, just what weight of brushstroke, just how much dilution and blending he’d have to use to capture them, and he’s sure he’ll never be able to but this is to be his _husband_ and so he’ll have years to try and master it.

“You dance well,” Daryl says after a few moments, and Rick immediately stumbles. Daryl chuckles and catches him, sweeping him into another turn and tightening his fingers in Rick’s.

“So do you, Your Grace,” Rick mumbles, hoping he sounds demure and proper instead of tongue-tied and dull.

They dance in silence for another few seconds, feet moving together gracefully again now that Rick’s dancing prowess isn’t being remarked upon anymore. Then, after the lack of conversation has gotten to be just the slightest bit awkward, Rick clears his throat ever so slightly and informs the duke: “We’ve recently purchased new candlesticks.”

Daryl raises an eyebrow as they turn another circuit. “Candlesticks.”

Rick clears his throat again. “Yes. They’re very… silver.”

Daryl sighs softly and breaks eye contact, staring out into the ballroom instead of at Rick. “How nice,” he mumbles.

“They are,” Rick says, a little _too_ excitedly to overcompensate for the fact that here he is, waltzing with his impossibly attractive fiancé, and he is _yet again_ talking about candlesticks.

Daryl lets out another tiny breath, just the smallest sigh, and Rick feels the duke’s hands going looser against him, the apathy seeping back into them as Rick continues proving himself to be a dull conversational partner. The watercolor eyes don’t return to Rick’s, and it’s like losing him, like losing a piece of Daryl to the depths of an empty ballroom.

“Your eyes are astonishing,” Rick murmurs, and it’s enough of a change from polite conversation that Daryl blinks and finally slides his gaze back over to Rick.

“My eyes?” Daryl repeats. His hand tightens again on Rick’s hip--very slightly, not back to the scorching hold from before, but it’s better and Rick will take it.

“I know I’m not supposed to comment on such things,” Rick admits, “but I find I can’t help myself.”

Daryl quirks one eyebrow upward. “Did you comment on such things with Miss Anderson? With Mr. Rhee?”

Rick blinks. “I did not comment on Miss Anderson’s eyes, no,” he tells the duke. “And I’ve never had occasion to notice Mr. Rhee’s.”

“Even when the two of you disappeared from the ballroom unaccompanied for up to ten minutes earlier this evening?” Daryl asks quietly, his eyes sliding away from Rick’s again but not going so far away this time. Rick follows his gaze until it lands on Glenn, who has been cornered at the lemonade table by a very determined-looking Lord Margaret Greene.

“Mr. Rhee is nothing but a friend,” Rick tells the duke. “I apologize for leaving to the powder room with him. There was nothing even slightly risque about it.”

Daryl hmms softly. “I cannot have my betrothed disappearing with other unmarried men. Regardless of how innocent it is. You understand.”

“I do,” Rick says, then gathers up his courage and waltzes a little taller. “But I cannot have _my_ betrothed smiling so intimately at Miss Amy Harrison. _You_ understand.” The last syllable comes out a little more timid than the rest of the statement, but Rick is still proud of himself for it.

Daryl tightens his hand on Rick’s waist and rubs his thumb there softly. “You make a good point. I do apologize.”

A slow liquid burn begins in Rick’s veins where Daryl’s thumb is moving and he allows himself the decadent luxury of letting his body gravitate just a bit closer to Daryl’s. “Are you disappointed?” he asks, staring at Daryl’s cravat instead of his eyes. “That my sister left town?”

Daryl spins them in a wide circle, sliding his hand a bit farther back around Rick’s waist and continuing with the slow back-and-forth drag of his thumb over the layers of clothing there. “Not particularly,” he says, his voice low and leather-soft. “Especially since I was able to replace her so efficiently.”

Rick flinches ever-so-slightly at the indication that his engagement is simply _efficient_ , even though he’s painfully aware that it is. “So,” he says, pressing his fingers softly into Daryl’s firm bicep. “You were not in love with her.”

Daryl flicks his eyes back up to Rick’s. “Love isn’t one of my requirements in a spouse.”

“What _are_ your requirements, then?” Rick asks, his mouth suddenly dry despite the lemonade from earlier.

Twirling them again, Daryl ticks off the requirements as if he’s reading them from a scrap of parchment, as if he’s thought of this many times before. “I require someone respectable, someone who can run my household. Someone who will help me plan social events befitting my rank, since heaven knows I know nothing about planning a ball and my steward informs me that I’ll be expected to give them from time to time.” He takes a breath, snags his eyes on Rick’s again and speaks in a lower, huskier tone. “And I require someone who can give me children. I believe I would like to have several of them.”

Rick is suddenly quite grateful that he’s dancing the second part, because he’s not entirely sure that his mind is working well enough to continue dancing the lead while he processes the heat in Daryl’s voice and the possibility of spending several years of his life round with Lord Dixon’s child. The blood rushes to his face at the thought of giving Daryl children, then away from his face toward certain other locations at the thought of the special kissing that would produce such children.

“Do you think you can do those things?” Daryl asks, cutting into Rick’s rather indistinct fantasies.

Rick blinks, gets caught in Daryl’s eyes again, and blinks one more time. “Yes,” he says after a moment. “Yes, I can.”

“Then you’ll do nicely as my future Lady Dixon,” Daryl says, letting his mouth curl up in a very soft, intimate smile.

Putting forth a massive effort, Rick keeps his knees from giving way under him. “You may call me by my Christian name if you wish,” he says quietly, his voice barely audible over the strains of cello music washing over them as they sweep past the musicians in the corner of the ballroom.

“Richard?” Daryl’s eyes are the sky on the western horizon just before the sun breaks free of the earth in the other direction, and Rick _loves_ the way his name sounds in the duke’s rough, masculine voice. How had he ever thought he would be content with Miss Anderson when there was such a man?

“Yes,” Rick says after he finally manages to pull his senses back together. “Or… just Rick.”

Daryl hmms and pulls him just the barest breath closer. “Rick.”

Rick’s eyes flick down to Daryl’s beauty mark again and he _longs_ to kiss it, to move his lips down from that spot to Daryl’s own lips, to kiss him the way he’s been waiting for all his life. But this is a ballroom, and such things just aren’t _proper_ , even if they were already married. So he’ll have to wait, to bide his time, to make sure that Daryl marries him before they start doing things that may or may not result in a much more hasty wedding than they’d prefer.

“I suppose you may call me Daryl, then,” Daryl says, breaking into Rick’s thoughts for the second time during the waltz. “In private, at least.”

“Daryl,” Rick breathes, and then the world starts to slow down, the music fading around them, and Rick is _certain_ that he’s falling in love. He smiles, his eyes sparkling into Daryl’s, and it’s only when he feels Daryl’s hand slip away from his waist and feels the cool air swirl between them that he realizes that they’d slowed because the song was ending and not because of any cosmic phenomenon like romance, like love, like fate.

“I shall take you back to your father, Rick,” Daryl says, still smiling softly. He keeps Rick’s hand in his and leads him back over to Abraham, and Rick blinks rapidly during the whole walk and tries his hardest to slow his heartbeat, to remind himself that this is _not_ a love match and that he’s engaged to Daryl because it was _efficient_ , that he’s going to have children with Daryl because that’s expected and not because it’s what Daryl _wants_ , that any respectable single person in the _ton_ would have done just fine for the duke’s requirements.

He tries to remind himself of that, but then Daryl stops in front of Abraham and swings himself gracefully in front of Rick. “It was a pleasure dancing with you, Mr. Grimes,” Daryl murmurs, and then he lifts Rick’s knuckles to his mouth and presses his lips there, leaving them against Rick’s gloved hand while he looks up into Rick’s eyes through his eyelashes. The duke’s eyes are starlight and warmth, blue and black and aquamarine and silver all at once, and Rick can feel every degree of body heat shared between his knuckles and the duke’s mouth, and for just that moment, Rick is absolutely certain that he will never want for anything else for as long as he lives.

And then the duke releases his hand and bows at Abraham before melting away into the ballroom. Abraham talks at Rick for a few seconds, but Rick hears none of it, instead staring off blankly after Daryl. A few moments pass and then he feels the light weight of Carol’s hand on his arm.

“Carol,” Rick breathes. “I think I’m in love.”


	4. An Educational Stroll

The next morning, Rick floats into the breakfast room and stares dreamily into his cup of chocolate while Abraham rumbles on about his usual early-morning topics such as the rising price of beef and the newly-constructed Grecian ruins on Lord Porter’s property in Hertfordshire and the political situation in the Colonies, which predictably leads into a rant on why no one will call them the _United States of America_ even though they’ve been independent for years and then, even more predictably, to a deeply despondent monologue on what a crime it was for the British forces to burn down their capitol city several years before.

Rick absentmindedly butters a roll and then forgets to eat it, instead gazing out the window into the garden and trying to predict how many children Daryl meant when he said “several.”

“What’s it like to be with child?” Rick asks, propping his head on his hand and continuing to watch the robins hop along the ground below his favorite bench.

Abraham chokes on a bit of toast. “What was that?”

Rick turns his head without lifting it from his hand and peers at Abraham. “I just want to know what it will be like. Is it lovely? Knowing you’re going to be a father like that?”

“Richard Morgan Grimes,” Abraham warns, waving his toast at Rick, “if you get pregnant before the duke weds you--”

“No!” Rick exclaims, then picks up his buttered roll and takes a nibble. “I’m not asking for _now_. I’m simply wondering what it will be like. One day.”

Abraham grunts and spends a long time spreading marmalade on a new toast point. “It’s not really proper to discuss such things, but yes. It’s lovely some of the time.” He puts the toast in his mouth and wriggles his top lip to dislodge the crumbs. “But most of the time it’s just inconvenient. You’ll forget what your ankles look like and then when you do manage to see them, they’ll be _enormous_. And you’ll get a special longing for smoked salmon, and ducklings will make you want to cry.”

Rick frowns softly and takes a larger bite of roll. “But mine will be _Lord Dixon’s_ children.”

“Yes, they will,” Abraham agrees, “and may the Good Lord save you from having children as difficult as you were.”

Rick smiles a little, thinking of little bitty tykes with curly hair and the duke’s narrow but unfathomably deep eyes, of teaching them to ride ponies and speak French and do sums and then sending them off to school, standing with Daryl’s arm around his waist as they watch the carriage pull away with their first son when he goes off to Harrow or Eton to begin his education, the little Marquess of Kitswoode, heir to his father’s dukedom. Charles, they’d name him, and they’d call him Carl for short. Little Carl Dixon.

Rick sighs happily, burrowing his chin farther into the hand he’s got propped up on the table. Abraham grunts again and rolls his eyes.

“We should go call on the Horvaths,” Abraham suggests after a moment. “What you need is some giggly schoolroom conversations with your friend to get all this sighing nonsense out of your system. And then we can actually discuss important issues such as what you’ll wear to Lord Espinosa’s musicale tomorrow night.”

“Do you suppose the duke will be there?” Rick breathes out, and Abraham rolls his eyes again and leaves the room.

//

It’s a lovely day, so Carol suggests that they all go for a stroll through Hyde Park rather than sitting in the Horvaths’ drawing room and staring at each other. Her father, Dale, agrees wholeheartedly, and Rick and Carol head off for the park, arm-in-arm like bosom friends with their fathers trailing behind.

“Carol,” Rick says as soon as they’re far enough away from Dale and Abraham that they can speak freely, “we’re to be married in a _month_. Four weeks! And I don’t know what to do. Father won’t tell me.”

Carol looks around to ascertain that no one is listening in on their conversation. “You mean in regards to… _relations_?”

Rick nods energetically. “How am I to please him when I don’t even know… how babies are made in the first place?”

“Oh, darling,” Carol says with a giggle. “ _I_ can tell you _that_.”

Rick stops walking and blinks at her. “You can?”

“Of course,” she says, tugging on his arm to make him start walking again. “But you must swear a solemn oath to never tell anyone that I was the one who told you.”

“So sworn,” Rick assures her immediately. “But how do you know? Did your father--”

“ _Heavens_ no,” Carol cuts in, snorting in a rather unladylike fashion. “I paid Miss Lerner twenty pounds to tell me under the utmost secrecy.” She pats RIck’s arm comfortingly. “But because you are my particular friend, I shall tell you at no cost.”

Rick spies a bench nearby and practically drags Carol over to it. They sit down in a rustle of skirts and tails and angle their bodies toward each other while Rick waits with breathless anticipation.

Carol leans forward and drops her voice to a whisper. “You have an… appendage. In your trousers. Correct?”

Rick feels his entire face flood with color. “Yes,” he murmurs.

“Well,” she says, patting his hand. “The duke has one as well. And when he decides to get you with child--”

“Yes?” Rick whispers, leaning forward even more.

“--he will take it out of his pantaloons--”

“ _Yes_?” Rick grips Carol’s hand tightly, his eyes wide and crystal-blue.

“--and put it inside your mouth.” Carol’s face is red now too, flushed and embarrassed. “And then something happens. Miss Lerner was horrifically vague about that. But somehow he will put a baby in your belly by putting his appendage in your mouth. I assume there is some sort of transfer that must happen, but I’m not sure on the particulars.”

Rick sits back and blinks at her. “Are you quite certain?”

“Of course. Miss Lerner wouldn’t have lied to me. She wouldn’t have dared.” Carol smiles a bit, the color in her cheeks returning to something more normal. “Besides, it makes quite a lot of sense, does it not? Babies grow in your womb, and your womb is in your stomach, and things that you swallow go into your stomach. It seems quite logical to me.”

Rick frowns, rubbing his hand absently over his flat belly. “That just seems… odd.”

“Well,” Carol says. “I imagine it is, until one gets used to it.”

Rick nods thoughtfully, trying to think of a good reason why a man might wish to put his… ah, appendage… in another person’s mouth. There must be another reason why it might be desirable, because he’s heard of far too many accidental pregnancies for it to be something as deliberate as what Carol has just described to him. Perhaps it feels pleasant?

Rick is a proper gentleman, and he’s never given much thought to his appendage. It’s functional for the purpose of voiding his bladder, and that’s about it. Of course, it also has a shameful habit of stiffening at inopportune moments--more so when he was younger, but even now it happens from time to time--and Rick has always done his best to ignore it when it has those sorts of episodes.

He’d tried to ask Abraham about it once, when he was twelve or so and terrified that it was a symptom of some terrible illness and that Rick was surely going to die. Abraham had turned bright red and sputtered. “You will not die of it,” he’d said. “Just don’t touch it while it’s like that. Proper young men do not do such things.”

And so Rick hadn’t touched it. In fact, with the exception of necessary touching for bathing and relieving himself in the washroom and for adjustments when it wandered into an awkward spot in his buckskins, he’d hardly touched it at _all_. He was vaguely aware that there was a trick to it, that something about his anatomy would lend itself to fathering children one day if he wanted, but he hadn’t touched it. He hadn’t.

Except…

Oh, very well. There was one time that he had dared to take himself in hand. He’d been seventeen and there had been an incident of stiffening in the morning that didn’t seem to be going away with the usual methods of just refusing to think about it. And so Rick had reached down and given it a firm but fleeting squeeze, hoping that the pressure would encourage it to go away.

It hadn’t.

It had, in fact, done quite the opposite. So Rick had immediately let go of it and clambered out of bed, snatching up a book written in Italian and trying very hard to repurpose his knowledge of French to understand the gist of the other language. The mental exercise had been good for putting his appendage back to rest, although Rick never quite figured out what the book was about beyond a vague impression that it involved carpets. Possibly. Or, equally possibly, lamps. He wasn’t really certain, but it hardly mattered as it served the purpose of getting Rick to breakfast at a reasonable time.

“Richard,” Abraham half-bellows from several yards behind them, and Rick and Carol both twist their bodies around to look at him, where he and Mr. Horvath are standing with a rather dashing gentleman with sandy hair and a moustache that matches Abraham’s in bushiness if not coarseness. Rick vaguely recognizes him and is fairly certain they’ve been introduced, although the man’s name escapes him at present. And beside the affable gentleman is--of _course_ \--Lord Dixon.

Daryl meets Rick’s eyes and allows just the corner of his mouth to curve upward. “Mr. Grimes,” he says, bowing and not breaking eye contact until he’s more than halfway through the motion. “Miss Horvath.”

Rick and Carol rise from the bench and walk over to the group--Carol walking lightly and giving the newcomers a bright smile, while Rick practically trips over his own feet as he attempts to stride confidently over.

“May I present my good friend Sir Axel Rayborne?” Daryl inquires politely. “Sir Axel, may I introduce Miss Carol Horvath, daughter of Mr. Horvath? And you know my fiancé, Mr. Grimes. He and Miss Horvath are particular friends.”

Axel bows with a flourish and immediately zeroes in on Carol’s lovely blue-green eyes, and Rick releases his friend’s arm and watches as she gravitates toward the charming baronet.

“Would you permit us to join you on your walk?” Daryl asks, his voice low and just for Rick, and Rick swallows around his dry throat and nods.

Daryl holds out his arm and Rick takes it, letting his fingers trail over the hard muscle of the duke’s arm just a little more than necessary. Carol and Sir Axel take the lead, strolling down the pathway a couple of yards in front of Daryl and Rick, and the two fathers trail along behind them. It’s a tight enough formation to be obvious that they are a group, but loose enough that any conversation will be reasonably private.

Rick lets them walk without speaking for almost five minutes before he decides that even though their silence is surprisingly companionable, it’s just not _polite_ to not at least attempt to strike up a conversation with his betrothed.

“So,” Rick says, tightening his arm in Daryl’s to pull them just slightly closer together. “How do you take your tea?”

Daryl blinks and looks over at Rick. “I beg your pardon?”

“I just… wondered how you take your tea,” Rick repeats. “It seems like the sort of thing I should know if I’m to be your duchess.”

Daryl returns his gaze to the road. “With a finger or two of scotch, preferably,” he mutters, and Rick laughs at that, causing Daryl’s ever-present scowl to waver for just a moment. “You think I jest,” he says, but the scowl _almost_ fades all the way into a neutral expression, and Rick wonders what it would be like to see the duke well and truly _smile_ \--something more unguarded and natural than the small, polite expressions he’s seen so far.

“Are you saying you dislike tea, Lord Dixon?” Rick asks, mentally steering himself back into the conversation at hand and adopting a teasing tone. “That’s rather unpatriotic of you, don’t you think?”

Daryl looks off into the distance, his eyes slanting across their path to gaze into the trees at the opposite side of the grassy expanse. “I don’t _dislike_ tea,” he says after a moment. “I’ve just never had anyone to drink it with.” He lets out a small breath that’s almost a sigh, then shrugs. “My brother, Merle--you’ll meet him soon-- _he_ dislikes tea. So it was always brandy or scotch or gin when he was at home, and when he wasn’t, it seemed like a great deal of trouble to have tea made for just myself.”

“Wasn’t your father at home?” Rick asks, allowing his shoulder to bump up against Daryl’s.

Daryl’s shoulder is firmer than Rick had expected it to be, and when Rick looks over he can tell that it’s not just muscle--it’s tension, reflected in his shoulder and up through his tightly set jaw.

“My father was at home, yes,” Daryl says after a moment, his voice devoid of emotion in what is clearly a deliberate move. “I don’t wish to speak of him.”

“Oh,” Rick murmurs, then forces a bright smile onto his face and pats Daryl’s arm with a flourish as if he’d just thought of something important that he’d meant to say. “Will you be attending Lord Espinosa’s musicale tomorrow evening?”

Daryl grunts in what Rick assumes is the affirmative but doesn’t respond verbally. Rick blinks and tries again. “I suppose we should begin planning our wedding at some point.”

“I’m sure your father will make all the arrangements,” Daryl says, standing up a bit straighter. “I imagine all I will need to do is arrive on time.”

Rick frowns deeply at the dismissive tone of the duke’s voice. “We should at least decide on who will be invited.”

“My brother won’t attend,” Daryl answers curtly. “Sir Axel likely will. As for anyone else, I leave that up to your discretion.” He frowns, lets his eyes drop to the path for a moment before looking back up, returning his gaze to the distance. “The ceremony is mostly for you, anyway. I find myself supremely uninterested in the details. We will be married, and that is what will matter to me. Because then I can go back to Warwickshire and not have to talk to so many _people_ all the time.”

They walk in silence for a few seconds, then Rick asks softly, “Will you be taking me with you?”

Daryl glances at him. “What?”

“When you return to Warwickshire,” Rick clarifies. “Will I be coming with you?”

Daryl scoffs and waves his free hand. “Of course you will. We should at least give the appearance of desiring a honeymoon.”

Rick peers at his betrothed out of the corner of his eye. What had happened to the charming, smiling man who had waltzed with him and kissed his knuckles the night before? Had… had he just imagined it? Had Daryl been this closed-off and frustrated then, too, and Rick had just misunderstood everything? Abraham had always said that things looked different in the candlelight of a ball than they did in the stark light of day. Had all the romance and the charm been all in Rick’s head?

He lets himself wallow in self-doubt and self-pity for a few seconds, then shores up his courage and determines to have a nice conversation regardless of what had or had not happened the previous night. “Did I tell you that we recently purchased new candlesticks?”

Daryl mutters something under his breath that Rick is fairly certain isn’t exactly polite. “Candlesticks,” Daryl repeats.

“Candlesticks are important,” Rick says, feeling all the blood in his body rush to his cheeks. “They’re--”

“Silver, I’m told,” Daryl interrupts. “We’re strolling in Hyde Park talking about bloody _candlesticks_.”

“Well, I don’t know what else you wish to talk about,” Rick snaps, feeling suddenly peevish. “You don’t want to talk about your family or about our wedding or about tea. I suppose we could discuss the weather, but I should think that would only offer a few minutes of conversation at best, wouldn’t you agree?”

Daryl raises an eyebrow at the path in front of them. “I have topics I’m interested in discussing,” he says, quietly but with firmness in his voice. “You just have not managed to hit upon one of them yet.”

“Conversations,” Rick points out, lifting his nose a bit imperiously, “are between two _people_ , not between a man and a lump of warm butter.”

Daryl raises his eyebrow even farther and stops walking, turning to face Rick. Abraham and Dale pause behind them to keep their distance. “Did you just call me a lump of butter?”

Rick leaves his nose lifted. “I did.”

Daryl searches Rick’s face for a moment before locking their eyes together, and Rick only just barely manages to hold himself together instead of melting into the deep cobalt depths of the duke’s eyes, never to return. The duke breaks the eye contact first, dropping his gaze ever-so-briefly to Rick’s lips.

“Have you kissed anyone before?” Daryl asks, very softly.

Rick swallows. “Never.”

Daryl lifts his hand and touches Rick’s chin, so very briefly. “I will attend the musicale tomorrow night. I look forward to seeing you there.”

And then he’s gone, moving away in a swirl of coat-tails and taking Sir Axel along with him, and Rick is left wondering what in the world happened in the space of a few breaths.

And what all of this means for the musicale.


	5. A Musical Moment

Rick practically drags Abraham from the house and they arrive at Lord Espinosa’s house on time--which is to say, rather unfashionably early. Abraham stands calmly in the back of the room, idly perusing the programs that have been printed on heavy linen paper, while Rick continually smoothes the charcoal-gray waistcoat he’d finally settled on and cranes his neck to see each new arrival as soon as they walk through the doors.

“Stop looking,” Abraham mutters, not taking his eyes off the program. “It’s unseemly for you to look so eager.”

“He’s to be my _husband_ , Father,” Rick says. “I’m not allowed to be eager to see him?”

“Not in the middle of Lord Espinosa’s music hall, you aren’t,” Abraham grumbles. “Stand still and read your program.”

Rick huffs out a breath but turns his attention to the program. It appears that it will be mostly Mozart, which Rick enjoys reasonably well. He wonders what the duke’s favorite composer is. Beethoven, he bets. The duke seems like a Beethoven sort of man. “Father,” Rick starts.

“Richard, if you ask me one more question about the duke’s tailor or his favorite sort of cake or what type of game he hunts, I’ll be forced to come down with a smashing headache and leave the musicale. And I’d take you with me, so you wouldn’t even see him. So be a good son and either talk about something else or find someone else to talk to about it for a few moments.”

Rick looks around the room again quickly. “None of my friends are here yet.”

Abraham grunts and levels a very haughty, fatherly look at Rick. “Perhaps that’s because you insisted on getting here so early that the scones are still in the oven.”

Rick lifts his nose as he had in the park. “If Lord Espinosa hadn’t wanted guests to arrive at six, she should have indicated that the musicale would start at seven. We were precisely on time.”

Grumbling, Abraham returns his gaze determinedly to the program. “ _On time_ is annoyingly early, as you well know. But it does seem that your common sense has gone downhill since your engagement, so I suppose I’ll let it slide. This time.”

Rick huffs again and tries _very_ hard to care about the details of the musicale, but the program is only so long and he quickly runs out of reading material. “I imagine he hunts to hounds, don’t you think? He seems like a man who has hounds.”

“Oh, look,” Abraham announces, a mite too loudly. “Miss Chambler is here. I’m sure you’ll want to go speak to her. I shan’t keep you from it.”

Rick _would_ be offended by his father’s lack of enthusiasm at talking about his future son-in-law, but Tara is already making a beeline for him at the same time that Abraham is making a beeline for Lord Porter, so he meets Tara halfway across the ballroom and greets her, watching her big brown eyes sparkle at him and smiling back even though he’s not sure he understands why.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out the reason, as Tara slaps him lightly on the arm and asks with breathless anticipation: “Has it happened yet? What was it like?”

Rick blinks. “Has what happened?”

“The duke,” Tara says, then looks around to make sure they’re not being eavesdropped upon and leans forward conspiratorially. “Has he kissed you yet?”

“Of course not,” Rick says, fighting down the butterflies at the mere thought. “He’s much too proper to kiss me before we marry.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Tara whispers. “I heard that he said he was going to kiss you _tonight_.”

Rick quickly shushes her and mirrors her movement from before, looking around to see who might be listening. “Who told you that?”

“Glenn,” she answers. “He heard it from Sasha, who heard it from Carol, who said that when you and the duke went walking with her and Sir Axel, the duke said he planned to kiss you at the musicale. At _this_ musicale. Tonight.”

Rick blushes a deep crimson and looks down at the polished wood floor. “He did not say that he would kiss me tonight. He merely… implied that he might.”

Tara sighs happily. “I wish _I_ was getting kissed tonight.”

“By whom?” Rick asks, raising an eyebrow and smiling at the same time.

Tara blushes and pats Rick’s arm. “No one in particular.”

“There _is_ someone,” Rick practically crows. “Who is it?” He lifts his head and looks around the room again, searching the faces of the gradually increasing crowd.

“No one,” Tara says again, then picks at a loose thread on the embroidery of her gown and mutters, “Certainly not Lord Espinosa.”

Rick blinks several times and turns his head to look over at the beautiful lord as she glides through the room, greeting all the guests with a practiced smile and a light pat on the arm. “You’re setting your cap for Lord Espinosa?”

“Lord, no,” Tara exclaims, letting her eyes flicker over to the group that the lovely earl is currently part of. “But a girl can have her dreams, isn’t that so?”

“It is,” Rick agrees cheerfully. “You should ask her to dance at the next ball.”

Tara’s mouth falls open. “I can _not_ ask a lord to dance! It’s… it’s just not _done_.”

“Nonsense,” Rick tells her. “Perhaps you can’t just walk up and _ask_ her, but you can steer her in the direction of asking _you_.”

“I--”

“Have you been introduced?” Rick presses.

“Yes, but--”

“Oh, Lord Espinosa!” Rick gestures to the earl and she smiles and walks over. “Thank you so much for inviting us to your musicale. It seems like we will have a lovely night of Mozart.”

Rosita nods, running her eyes over Tara’s dress in a way that Rick can’t help but notice. “Yes, it will be a lovely night indeed. I am pleased that you’ve chosen to attend. And you as well, Miss Chambler.”

Tara manages to murmur out something that sounds like a “thank you” and Rick continues. “Miss Chambler was just asking me about the painting there in the alcove. It is a Turner piece, is it not?”

“John Robert Cozens, actually,” Rosita says, smiling directly at Tara. “Would you like to view it closer, Miss Chambler?”

“She would,” Rick says, channeling Carol from the ball when Rick had been asked to dance. “And oh, I believe I see my father. If you’ll excuse me.” He gives a respectful bow and scoots away from them, heading for the corner where his father and Lord Porter are deep in conversation.

And then the room suddenly sings with energy, and Rick stops in his tracks and looks at the door.

“Daryl,” he breathes, feeling his face light up as the duke’s eyes fall on him and hang there like garlands of midnight-blue roses draping across his shoulders. He forces himself to stand still and not fidget while Daryl speaks briefly with Sir Axel and then moves away from the baronet toward Rick.

“Good evening, Mr. Grimes,” Daryl says, taking Rick’s hand and bringing it up to his mouth, and Rick swears his heart stops beating for the few seconds that Daryl’s lips are pressed to his gloved hand. What would it feel like to feel those lips on his bare skin, he wonders? He bets they would be warm, perhaps a little damp, especially if Daryl licked his lips before pressing them to Rick’s knuckles. And that just makes him think about Daryl’s lips pressed against _other_ things, namely _Rick’s_ lips, and for some reason Rick’s appendage gives a little twitch of interest at that, as if it knows something that Rick himself doesn’t.

“Good evening, Lord Dixon,” Rick murmurs once he has the breath to do so.

Daryl straightens up and releases Rick’s hand, which tingles as he drops it to his side. “I wondered if I might sit with you and your father during the musicale?”

“Y-yes,” Rick says, watching Daryl’s lips move and trying to convince his appendage that there’s nothing of note going on.

Daryl looks around the room for a moment as if he’s not entirely sure what to say, then murmurs, “I do apologize for being a terrible conversationalist yesterday.”

“It’s no trouble--”

“It is,” Daryl insists, moving his gaze back to Rick and causing all the air to rush out of Rick’s lungs. “I will endeavour to not be such a lump of butter in the future. You are my betrothed and you will be my husband and it is the least I can do to attempt to make our marriage amiable.”

Rick swallows down the expected disappointment at the idea that Daryl’s vision of their marriage is to be merely _amiable_ , but he nods graciously anyway. “It is no trouble,” he says again.

Daryl nods slowly, then offers his arm to Rick. “Would you like to take a turn about the room while we wait for the musicians to prepare?”

“Yes,” Rick breathes, taking Daryl’s arm like it’s a lifeline and he’s drowning at sea. And as Daryl turns and meets Rick’s eyes for a moment before they start to walk, Rick thinks for a moment that he just might _be_ drowning at sea, in the duke’s hurricane-blue eyes and tousled hair. In any case, walking with the duke feels more like floating, like Rick is being pulled along in the current instead of moving his feet along the ground, and in that moment it’s easy to pretend that this is something _more_.

“My father and I did not get on,” Daryl murmurs after a half-circuit of the room. “I still do not wish to speak of it, but I determined that I should explain to you why.”

“You don’t have to explain, Your Grace,” Rick says quietly, smiling at Miss Beth Greene as they move through the crowd.

“No, this much you should know,” Daryl says, tightening his arm and pulling Rick slightly closer to him. “He was very attached to my brother and resented the fact that it was I who would inherit the title and not Merle. He tried many times to change the precedence so that Merle would be his heir. He even wrote a letter to the king, I believe.” Daryl lets out a small huff of breath that Rick would not have noticed if they had not been speaking so intimately. “And so we were not close. He would routinely tell me that he wished I had never been born.”

Rick resists the urge to rub at his throat, which has begun to ache for Daryl’s past. “No son should have to hear such things.”

“No, they shouldn’t,” Daryl agrees. “But I did. Daily. When he spoke to me at all. And he behaved rather atrociously toward my mother, as well.” He sighs heavily. “That is all that I care to say on the subject. I do not wish to speak of him again. And I have told you this in confidence as my future duchess, so I’ll thank you to not tell others what I’ve said.”

“Of course not.” Rick nods decisively. “Anything you tell me in confidence, I shall take to my grave.”

“Thank you,” Daryl rumbles, and the tone is somehow so intimate as to be scandalous, and Rick shivers.

“Are there other topics that are off-limits, Your Grace?” Rick asks, lifting a hand in passing greeting to Mr. Tyreese Williams.

Daryl half-smiles, keeping his twinkling eyes facing forward. “Candlesticks, I should think.”

Rick laughs and swats at Daryl’s arm, and Daryl chuckles along with him, and Rick has just begun to hope that perhaps a kiss will take place after all when Lord Espinosa calls for everyone to take their seats. Daryl leads Rick to a seat next to Abraham and then sits down beside him, crossing his legs fashionably and eschewing conversation in favor of reading his program with single-minded devotion.

The music is lovely, the musicians skilled--but Daryl doesn’t seem to particularly enjoy it. Rick wonders if anyone else is able to tell. The duke’s eyes are politely watching the stage, his mouth curved into a carefully-constructed pleasant smile, and he nods along with the music sometimes as if he’s completely focused on it. In short, he gives all the appearance of a man who’s greatly fascinated with this lovely rendition of Mozart’s compositions.

But his eyes are tight around the corners. Rick is certain of it. And behind the pleasant smile is a firmly set jaw that fascinates Rick at the same time that it saddens him a bit. He wonders if Daryl simply doesn’t like Mozart, or if he has bad memories of it, or if he’s perhaps simply constipated. In any case, he longs to reach over and take Daryl’s hand in his, to give it a discreet squeeze like a married man would be able to give to his husband without causing a scandal. Suddenly, a month-long engagement seems like several lifetimes, and he returns his gaze to the stage and tries very hard not to think about it.

The music eventually ends, and Daryl lets out the tiniest sigh of relief that no one but Rick notices. Lord Espinosa directs everyone into the ballroom for refreshments, and everyone stands and begins meandering that way. Rick takes a few steps in that direction, but Daryl’s hand lands on his elbow and holds him back.

“Lord Espinosa’s library is the third door down from the men’s powder room,” he murmurs. “Tell your father you need to see to a loose button and then meet me there.”

Rick swallows hard, his eyes scanning Daryl’s face wildly and then landing on his lips. “Yes, Your Grace,” he whispers, and Daryl nods and takes his leave, weaving through the crowd until Rick loses sight of him.

//

The hallway is dimly lit past the powder room, and Rick spends several heart-stopping seconds hiding behind a potted plant so that he won’t be seen by others as he slinks down toward the library, but he eventually makes it to the room. He takes a deep, steadying breath and smoothes his waistcoat before pushing open the door quietly.

There’s no fire in the fireplace, but there are enormous floor-to-ceiling windows and the moonlight from outside pours in through them like waterfalls of silver. Rick frowns when Daryl isn’t standing in front of them, silhouetted mysteriously by the starlight, but a low rumble from his left sets his heart to racing.

“Mr. Grimes,” Daryl rumbles, then reaches out and wraps his fingers around Rick’s arm, drawing him farther into the room and carefully shutting the door behind them.

“Lord Dixon,” Rick whispers, feeling his Adam’s apple bob wildly as if it’s trying to get a better angle on the situation.

Daryl pulls Rick around to face him and then steps up into his personal space, sliding an arm around Rick’s waist. “I think we can dispense with the formalities here in the dark when it’s just us, don’t you agree?”

“Are you going to kiss me?” Rick breathes, more air than word.

“Yes,” Daryl says simply. He tightens the arm around Rick’s waist and slides his other hand up Rick’s back to tease at the nape of his neck just above his cravat. “Is that what you want?”

Rick swallows again and lets himself lean forward to close most of the remaining space between himself and the duke. “Yes.”

“Your very first kiss,” Daryl murmurs, his mouth so close to Rick’s that Rick can feel the duke’s breath on his lips. “And I get to give it to you.” And with those words, Daryl closes the distance and his lips brush against Rick’s so achingly softly that at first Rick isn’t even sure they’ve made contact. But then Daryl slides his hand into Rick’s carefully-coiffed hair and starts to move his lips, and the edges of the universe come crashing in until there is nothing in existence that isn’t contained in this room, in this spot, in this kiss.

Rick whimpers and slides his hands up to Daryl’s arms, tightening his fingers in the smooth dark fabric covering what seems to be very hard muscle. Daryl’s lips are still moving and Rick is fairly certain that he’s supposed to be doing something in return, but he can’t quite think with enough wherewithal to figure out what that might be, so he just stands still, his hands clutching Daryl’s biceps, and lets the other man lead.

After a moment, Daryl chuckles and speaks against Rick’s lips. “Kiss me back.”

Rick moans, then blinks. He’s never made such a noise before, he’s certain of it, and for some reason the sound makes _Daryl_ moan, and Rick’s appendage stirs in his breeches and starts to reach for Daryl. “I don’t know how,” he whispers.

“Just move your lips,” Daryl murmurs, then drops his hands to Rick’s hips and walks them backwards until Rick’s back is pressing lightly against a bookcase. “And put your arms around my neck.”

Rick does, draping his arms over Daryl’s shoulders and looping them loosely behind him, and he moves his lips experimentally, trying to match Daryl’s own movements. He has a brief moment of self-consciousness, wondering what in heaven’s name he’s _thinking_ , being so bold as to kiss the duke with such enthusiasm when he’s sure that he’s not the first or even the most knowledgeable of the men who’ve kissed Daryl, but the tentative motions of Rick’s lips drag a groan from deep inside Daryl’s chest and the duke steps forward, pressing their bodies more firmly together.

Rick hadn’t really doubted that Carol was correct when she’d said that the duke would also have an appendage, but any remaining uncertainty about that fact is immediately settled as their hips slot together and Rick feels Daryl’s length hot against his own.

And the pressure feels… _good_. Nothing like Rick had imagined. Rick whimpers again and his hips jerk forward involuntarily, and he moans entirely too loudly at the harder contact.

Daryl pulls back then, slowly but firmly, and he leans his forehead against Rick’s. Rick tries to follow Daryl’s lips with his own, tries to pull him back in, but Daryl puts his hand on the side of Rick’s neck and holds him back gently, his fingers pressed lightly into Rick’s skin above his cravat. “I believe that’s enough for tonight,” he murmurs. “Any more and I’ll be tempted to throw you down on the sofa and _have_ you, and we still have a month to wait before I can do that.”

Rick swallows hard and then attempts to clear his throat. “Have me?”

Daryl laughs breathlessly and tilts his head back in for another brief peck of a kiss. “You’ll enjoy it. When the time comes. I’ll make sure of that.”

Rick has nothing to say to that--or at least nothing that he thinks will come across as the slightest bit intelligent, so he just nods and meets the duke’s eyes, glittering black in the moonlight. “Thank you. For the kiss.”

Daryl smiles--really _smiles_ \--and runs his gloved thumb over Rick’s bottom lip. “The pleasure was all mine,” he murmurs. “Now, go back out to the ballroom and have some refreshments. I will follow in a few minutes.”

  
Rick nods, then grabs Daryl’s hand as he drops it. “Thank you,” he breathes again, and Daryl squeezes his hand and doesn’t let go until Rick has taken several steps toward the door, their hands remaining connected until the last possible second, fingers still outstretched toward each other even after they’ve both let go.


	6. A Thorough Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merle! I love writing Merle. I've reduced the age difference between the Dixon brothers in this fic, so Merle is only about 4 years older than Daryl, if that helps you picture things. And Daryl is about 3 years older than Rick. 
> 
> Also as clarification, I added a "mentions of mpreg" tag at the request of some readers, but I want to stress that although the characters talk about it a lot, this is not an mpreg story. They discuss babies quite a bit because in this society it's just assumed that people will have kids to inherit their titles/fortunes, but if you saw the new tags pop up and now you're holding your breath for this to turn into a pregnancy story halfway through, you're gonna be disappointed. People (male or female) getting pregnant will not be a plot point in this one.
> 
> And finally, I am aware that a British person would most likely use "arse" instead of "ass" but I'm sorry, I just can't do it. So my American is showing a little bit in this one. :)

After the musicale, Rick doesn’t see Daryl for several days, although he does receive a note from Daryl explaining that he won’t be able to call on Rick due to some urgent business that must be attended to at once. The note goes into the box on Rick’s dresser along with both gloves that the duke has kissed, and Rick suffers through days upon days of callers who’ve never cared much about him before but are suddenly _fascinated_ by him now that he’s betrothed to a duke.

He spends a lot of time staring out the window of the drawing room, wishing for Daryl to come riding up on a white stallion and whisk him away to Warwickshire, where the duke would presumably throw him down on a sofa and _have_ him, whatever that might mean.

Rick has imagined being _had_ a thousand times since the kiss in Lord Espinosa’s library, and he really has no context for what that would look like but for some reason the thought of lying on the sofa with Daryl on top of him, the other man’s powerful body pressing down on his own--well, it certainly sends a thrill through Rick’s veins. And he’s fairly certain that appendages are involved, because his own certainly takes notice every time he thinks about Daryl kissing him like he had before, only in a more… horizontal fashion.

But the more he thinks about it, the more confused he gets. The duke had promised that he would enjoy it, but it doesn’t seem like having the duke’s appendage in his mouth would be very enjoyable for _Rick_. And the thought of putting his own in the duke’s mouth… well, that does seem like something that Rick--or at least _parts_ of Rick--would find pleasant, but it’s not like he can do that to Lord Dixon. Daryl is the duke and he outranks Rick, and by taking the title of duchess then Rick will be the one expected to bear the children ( _several_ children, his mind supplies). So no matter how delightful it might feel, he won’t ever be able to try it.

But still. Daryl had said that Rick would enjoy the marriage bed. So all he has to do is trust his fiancé and everything will go perfectly. He’s certain of it. And if nothing else, Daryl could just kiss him again. That in itself would be lovely. But that line of thought leads him again to lying on his back on a sofa with Daryl on top of him, kissing him, Rick wrapping his legs around--

“His Grace the Duke of Bettsville,” Basset intones from the doorway to the drawing room. “And his brother, Mr. Dixon.”

Rick squeaks. Abraham shoots him a distinct ‘no son of mine ought to squeak like a ground-squirrel’ glance and then nods at Basset. “We are at home to visitors. Show them in.”

The butler leaves, and Abraham and Rick stand up politely to wait. Rick spends the next few precious seconds primping--straightening his already-straight cravat, smoothing his already-smooth hair, brushing lint from his lint-less waistcoat--before Daryl strides into the room, followed closely by a man Rick has never seen before. _Merle Dixon, in the flesh_ , he thinks, and he drops into the half-curtsy that he may or may not have been practicing a hundred times a day.

“Good morning, Col. Grimes. Mr. Grimes,” Daryl says, nodding at both of them in turn. “May I present my brother, Mr. Merle Dixon?”

They all murmur their greetings, and Rick catches Daryl’s eye and smiles softly. Daryl blinks and looks confused for a moment, then lets one corner of his mouth tilt upward in return.

“What a nice little drawing room,” Merle says, walking over to a shelf and picking up a little porcelain bell. “Must be much easier for the servants to keep clean than the ones back at Ashthorpe Manor, eh, Duke?”

Daryl flicks his eyes at Merle and mumbles, “It is a very nice room.”

“Of course, all the drawing rooms at Ashthorpe are very large. Maybe _too_ large. This room is more on the same scale as the ones at Wooldon House, wouldn’t you agree?” Merle rings the porcelain bell and sits it back on the shelf. “But then Wooldon House is more of a cottage, really.”

“ _Merle_ ,” Daryl hisses, then forces his mouth back into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Surely you aren’t meaning to imply that this room is substandard.”

Merle smirks and looks at Rick. “Of course not. My apologies, gentlemen. This room is exceedingly…” He glances around as if searching for the word to be embroidered on a pillow. “Adequate.”

“You’re his grace’s _half_ -brother, do I remember that correctly?” Abraham says, his moustache quivering but doing a fine job of hiding what Rick imagines must be a deep scowl. “The son of the previous duke and his… first wife, was it?” Merle frowns, and Abraham smiles, like a pendulum of emotion between them. “Oh, but that would make _you_ the current duke. My apologies. I was mistaken.”

“Would anyone like biscuits?” Rick chirps, shooting Daryl a desperate glance. “I’ll have Mrs. Monroe bring in some biscuits and tea.”

“Don’t care for tea,” Merle grumbles, eyeing Abraham with a deep scowl on his face.

“Well, you will drink it,” Daryl says. “My betrothed wants tea and so we shall all have tea.” Merle opens his mouth to say something and Daryl speaks over him. “ _All of us_.”

Merle frowns, then walks over to an armchair and sits down heavily in it. Rick rings the servants’ bell and murmurs instructions to Mrs. Monroe, then heads over to the sofa and sits down primly, his hands folded carefully in his lap. Daryl moves to the window to gaze out into the garden as Rick had been doing earlier, and Abraham stays standing, glaring daggers at Merle even though the other man is not looking at him.

The ticking of the clock in the room sounds like a very large, very slow woodpecker who seems to be searching for food in Rick’s skull, and he casts about desperately for something to talk about that isn’t candlestick-related.

“Have you been in London long?” he finally settles on, giving Merle his best pleasant-duchess smile, the one that he has also been practicing for several days.

Merle grunts. “A few days. Duke tried to get me to join the navy. The bloody navy, can you imagine? Me on a boat? It didn’t take.”

“You barely tried,” Daryl grouses from the window. “You boarded the ship and then immediately de-boarded. I believe you were on the deck for a total of possibly five seconds.”

“It was enough to know that I didn’t have sea-legs,” Merle says. “And I lasted longer as a sailor than I did as a clergyman.”

Daryl grimaces but doesn’t say anything, and Rick feigns a cough to hide his snicker at the thought of Merle as a pastor.

“Will you try the law, then?” Rick asks politely, smiling at Mrs. Monroe when she scurries in and leaves a tea set, complete with scones and biscuits.

“Do I look like a man who has any interest in the law?” Merle asks, raising a grizzled eyebrow at him.

“How shall you live, then?” Abraham finally says, moving around to sit down in a chair of his own and nodding at Rick to begin pouring the tea. “Every man needs a vocation. Or a spouse.”

Merle tilts his head back and laughs. “Don’t need either one. My brother here will give me a house and I’ll live off of his generosity. It’s a proud Dixon tradition.”

“Wooldon House isn’t entailed,” Daryl murmurs from the window. “Perhaps I shall install you there.”

Rick chokes on a laugh and misses a teacup, splashing tea all over the serving tray. Mrs. Monroe rushes over to help him mop up the spilled liquid as Rick murmurs apologies while trying quite desperately to school his face back into a neutral expression instead of grinning ear-to-ear. Finally, the mess is cleaned up, and Rick manages to finish serving up the tea to everyone.

He gives Daryl his cup last, carrying it over to him at the window and handing it over with a smile. Daryl takes it from him and peers into the cup.

“Milk, with just a bit of sugar,” Rick tells him, keeping his voice low enough that only Daryl can hear it. “You didn’t say how you preferred it, so I was forced to guess.”

Daryl meets his eyes, furrowing his brow slightly. “Thank you.” He takes a sip. “It’s quite perfect, actually.”

“Really?” Rick feels his eyes lighting up at the praise and he smiles even more brightly.

“Yes,” Daryl answers. He takes another sip, still watching Rick. “My apologies for not calling on you sooner. I’ve been… occupied.” He slants his eyes meaningfully at Merle, who is already back to having a conversation with Abraham that seems somewhat less hostile this time, and Rick nods.

“Of course. I understand.” Rick lets his feet shuffle just the smallest bit closer to Daryl. “I have missed you, though.” Daryl blinks, and Rick tilts his head and continues. “Why do you do that?”

Daryl lifts the teacup back to his lips and murmurs, “Why do I do what?” before taking another drink.

“Sometimes you seem… surprised. When I show signs of affection for you.”

Daryl frowns slightly and looks back out into the garden. “This is a marriage of convenience,” he says after a moment. “I suppose I did not expect you to be so enthusiastic about it.”

Rick bites back a sigh. After all, a duchess must be able to hide his negative emotions in polite company, so this gives him practice for such things. “It began as a marriage of convenience, that is true. But…” He takes a breath to steady himself. “I do find myself… growing fond of you. And if we’re to be married forever and have children together, surely that is not such a bad thing.”

“It is not,” Daryl agrees. “I suppose I’m simply not sure why you’re developing a fondness for me. After all, the only things I have done are examine you like a prize colt, refuse to engage in polite conversation with you about the usual topics, and bring my bastard brother into your drawing room to insult your knick-knacks.”

Rick smiles, and the ghost of a return smile toys with Daryl’s mouth. “You’ve done more than that, Your Grace,” Rick points out, batting his eyelashes just a bit.

“Oh, have I?” Daryl asks, slanting his eyes back to Rick without turning his head away from the window. “Enlighten me.”

“Well,” Rick begins, then drops his voice even more, down to the barest whisper. “You did kiss me rather thoroughly in Lord Espinosa’s library a few nights ago.”

Daryl does turn his head back to Rick at that, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, Richard,” he murmurs. “That was _not_ a thorough kiss.”

It’s Rick’s turn to blink this time. “It wasn’t?”

“No,” Daryl says, his pupils dilating as he drifts his gaze down Rick’s body, stopping briefly at his lips, his throat, his chest, his… breeches. Which suddenly feel not nearly substantial enough to hide this conversation from the others in the room. Rick angles his body away from his father and stares out the window to hide his blush.

“Would you like me to show you what _thorough_ means?” Daryl rumbles from beside him, his voice reminding Rick of the leather of a well-loved saddle, dark and soft.

Rick swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He nods sharply, just a jerk of his head, and Daryl chuckles softly and turns back to the room.

“Col. Grimes,” Daryl says. “Would you permit Mr. Grimes and I to stroll in the garden for a few moments?”

Rick squeezes his eyes shut and prays to a merciful God that his father will say yes.

“I suppose since you are betrothed you can have a _few_ moments to yourselves,” Abraham grumbles. “Stay to the garden where we can see you from the window. And please return inside in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” Merle scoffs. “Only takes two to ravish him up against a garden wall.”

“ _Merle_ ,” Daryl hisses, completely aghast, at the same time that Abraham and Rick both give undignified squeaks.

“What?” Merle says, spreading his hands with a teacup in one and the saucer in the other. “You’ll be married in less than a month. No one will be particularly surprised that you anticipated your vows a bit, eh?”

Daryl looks at Abraham with serious eyes. “We will _not_ anticipate our vows, Col. Grimes. Your son will be pu--”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Abraham interrupts, his moustache swishing from side to side like it’s trying to sweep away the conversation. “As long as you’re satisfied with my son’s purity, Your Grace, I don’t feel the great desire to have a discussion on the subject.”

“I am satisfied,” Daryl says, returning his eyes to Rick and giving him another shiver-inducing up-and-down look. “And if you will excuse us, I would still like to take that turn about the garden now.” He holds out an arm and Rick takes it immediately. “Shall we?” he murmurs, and Rick nods and tugs him surreptitiously toward the door.

Once they’re outside, Rick takes a deep breath and turns, letting his arm drop away from Daryl’s so that he can look the duke in the eyes. His breath comes fast and his heart beats wildly as the duke smiles very slightly and glances down at Rick’s lips. “Are you going to ravish me?” Rick asks, breathless.

“Do you want me to?” Daryl reaches for Rick’s hand and lifts it to his mouth, his lips brushing over the glove, and Rick whimpers and wonders how many times this has to happen before he’ll stop being floored by it, before he’ll decide that it’s not momentous enough to permanently retire each glove that touches Daryl’s lips.

“I--” Rick whispers, watching Daryl’s lips move on his knuckles. And they are _moving_ , not just pressing there, caressing his hand with some sort of magic rhythm that Rick feels in his knees. “I don’t know. I’m not even certain what that means, exactly.”

Daryl drops his hand after a moment, letting his eyes flick to the window where they can be seen from the drawing room. “Tell me what you would like me to do to you.”

“Kiss me,” Rick blurts out. “ _Thoroughly_.”

The duke lets out a small burst of laughter, tinged with joy instead of judgment. “You, Richard Grimes, are a diamond of the first water, and do not ever let anyone tell you otherwise.” He tucks Rick’s arm back in his own and starts strolling through the garden again, meandering slowly toward a corner that can’t be seen easily from the house.

And then they’re there, and Daryl gently turns Rick to face him and steps forward, backing Rick into the stone wall of the garden and crowding in front of him, the ivy from the wall cushioning Rick’s body and rustling as his head leans back into it. Rick’s heartbeat speeds up as Daryl’s body presses against his own, all hard muscle and searing heat, and Rick whimpers at the feel of it, moving his hands awkwardly to Daryl’s arms and clinging there.

“I won’t ravish you, not all the way,” Daryl murmurs, pressing his lips against the racing pulse point in Rick’s neck. “But I _will_ show you what it is to be truly kissed.”

Daryl lifts his mouth to Rick’s and hovers there, his breath warm on Rick’s lips and his eyes searching Rick’s out from mere centimeters away. Rick waits a lifetime for the contact, for the connection, but when it doesn’t come after he’s certain that several stars must have been born and died in the interval, Rick sucks in a quick breath and leans forward, bridging the gap between them. Daryl chuckles low against his mouth and then moves his lips on Rick’s and Rick flings his arms around the duke’s neck, pulling him in tighter.

For several seconds, it’s just like the kiss in Lord Espinosa’s library, and while Rick would _never_ complain about sharing another kiss like that… well, this doesn’t seem any more _thorough_ than the previous one had been. But it hardly matters, because Daryl’s lips are moving on Rick’s like the way they’d waltzed together--Daryl leading and Rick following along like he was being shown the way to heaven’s gates.

And then, something changes.

Daryl’s hands move to Rick’s waist and he splays his fingers out as he holds on, rubbing his thumbs over the dip of Rick’s hipbones in a way that sends tremors straight down into Rick’s appendage, and when Daryl rolls his own hips forward and Rick can feel the duke’s hardness pressing into his stomach, he can’t help it. He opens his mouth and lets out a breathy little moan, and Daryl grunts in victory and deepens the kiss, slipping his tongue between Rick’s lips and setting forth on a journey of exploration there.

Rick has never imagined that kissing would be anything like this, but he’s nothing if not a quick study and so he tentatively mirrors Daryl’s movements, flicking his tongue out to touch Daryl’s. Daryl groans low in his throat and presses his body more firmly against Rick’s, sliding his hands back to cup his ass. Rick lets out a tiny whimper at the contact and Daryl holds him in place as he rocks his own hips forward into Rick’s.

Rick gasps and slides one hand up into Daryl’s hair, cursing society’s rules for forcing him to wear gloves because he wants more than anything to feel the duke’s hair in his fingers, to twist the soft locks in his hands and pull, to explore anything the duke will allow him to explore with bare skin instead of cloth. But Daryl’s lips on his aren’t clothed and there’s no barrier between him and the wicked things Daryl is doing to his mouth with his tongue, and Rick suddenly understands passion, understands why people throw everything away for this, why Lori would have run off to Scotland with a man who made her feel this way.

And he’s so, _so_ glad that that man hadn’t been Daryl.

The duke rolls his hips forward again and then withdraws slightly, closing his teeth gently around Rick’s bottom lip and pulling it out away from Rick’s mouth just a bit before releasing it. Rick opens his eyes and meets Daryl’s, slightly dazed and out of breath.

“Lord Dixon,” he breathes.

“ _Daryl_ ,” the duke corrects, pressing a kiss to Rick’s jawline again. “When we’re alone... always Daryl.”

“Did Lori call you that too?” Rick asks, arching his neck to give Daryl access to anything he wants, then immediately regrets the question when Daryl’s lips stop moving and the duke pulls back to look Rick in the eyes. Rick bites his lip and looks away, gazing at the bench where the robins like to perch.

“You think I did this to your sister?” Daryl asks, very softly.

“No,” Rick says quickly, then flicks his eyes back over to Daryl. “I mean… I’m not certain. It would be fine if you had. You _were_ betrothed to her, after all.”

“I was,” Daryl agrees, then steps backward away from Rick, smoothing out his own waistcoat and looking at the ground. Rick bites his lip to keep from whimpering at the loss of contact and just lets Daryl think for a moment. He steps away from the wall and stands there awkwardly.

After what feels like a very long time, Daryl looks up at Rick. He reaches up and very gently pulls a leaf of ivy out of Rick’s hair. “I was betrothed to Miss Grimes, yes. But… I never…” He stops, clears his throat. “I never wanted her the way I want you. And that’s…” He stops again, but this time he doesn’t continue. There’s another long silence, and Rick watches Daryl’s gloved fingers tighten and relax at his sides until it gets to be too much.

“I don’t know what it means to want,” Rick breathes into the stillness between them. “But I know I do. For you.”

“This isn’t a love match,” Daryl says, meeting Rick’s eyes again at last. “I do not want you hoping for things that will never happen.”

Rick’s stomach falls and he blinks just in case there were the beginnings of tears that he would need to blink away. There weren’t. But oh, there could have been. “I have no expectations,” he murmurs. “But I would like for you to kiss me again.”

Daryl leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to Rick’s lips. “We should return to the house,” he says as he pulls away. “Your father will be wondering what’s become of us.”

He offers his arm, and Rick takes it, his mind a mess of confusion and uncertainty at the same time that his lips and his heart seem to catch fire and burn for the duke. _No expectations_ , he reminds himself, but he fears that he is already lost.


	7. A Clandestine Visit

“I do not understand him, Carol,” Rick says, looking down at his hands folded primly in his lap and willing himself not to wring them. “One moment he is… he is _kissing_ me. And the next, he pretends that we are nothing to each other. But… but we must be _something_ to each other, don’t you think? If we’re going to have children together.”

They are sitting in her drawing room, their fathers deeply involved in a card game at the table by the window while Rick and Carol perch on a sofa on the other side of the room, whispering urgently to one another, and Carol shrugs at Rick’s question. “I do not know that producing children necessarily requires… emotion. Consider Sir Gareth. He and his wife simply despise one another and do nothing to hide it. And yet, she is with child again.”

Rick thinks about the skinny, unpleasant baronet--Daryl’s cousin, he remembers, and technically the duke’s heir since Daryl has no children yet--and frowns. “Do you suppose they kiss? Or is it simply…” He tilts his head, considering the word he would like to use, then realizes he doesn’t know it and scowls. “The production of a child?”

“I cannot imagine them kissing,” Carol says, wrinkling her nose. “But then again, I cannot imagine _you_ kissing anyone, either.” She nudges Rick playfully and smiles.

Rick flushes slightly, remembering Daryl’s hands on his hipbones in the garden, the faint flavor of tea on Daryl’s tongue. “He said he did not want Lori the way he wants me. Surely that means something.”

“Dear, I don’t mean to be unkind, but he has told you that he considers your future marriage to be one of convenience only,” Carol says. She reaches over and takes Rick’s hand, cups it between her own. “It is probably best if you let go of these notions that anything he does _means_ something.”

Sighing heavily, Rick pulls his hand from hers and puts it back in his lap. “I know. You are right, of course. But…” He sighs again. “It’s just that when he touches me… it seems that he wants to.”

“Rick,” Carol says, softly. “Take care with your heart. He will break it if you let him.”

Rick lets out a little huff of bitter laughter. “I’m coming to realize that.” He bites his lip, then looks back up at Carol. “You will come visit me, won’t you? When he whisks me off to Warwickshire and leaves me there. It will be terribly lonely.”

Carol arches an eyebrow. “You believe he would do that?”

“Well, I know he plans to take me there immediately following the wedding,” Rick tells her, then frowns. “He says we must give the appearance of wanting a honeymoon.”

“That sounds pleasant, though. To go see your new manor together. You will truly feel like a duchess when you are installed in your manor.”

“I don’t want to feel like _a_ duchess,” Rick grumbles. “I want to feel like _his_ duchess.”

“Rick--”

“I know, Carol,” Rick interrupts. He reaches over and runs his fingers over an embroidered pillow. “Between you and the duke, I’m well aware that I shouldn’t give him my heart.”

Carol eyes him and then speaks very quietly. “But you already have.”

Rick just shrugs, trying not to think about Daryl’s eyes sparkling like liquid sapphires in the candlelight. Trying not to imagine Christmases at Ashthorpe, leaning against Daryl’s shoulder by the fireplace and drinking mulled cider while their children play with their new puppy on the rug. Trying not to even consider how it would-- _will_ \--feel to have Daryl’s hand on his swollen belly as they talk in hushed, intimate tones about names for the new baby and plans for the future. “It doesn’t matter,” he says finally, blinking the images away and setting his jaw. “I am allowed to feel affection for my future husband. He doesn’t get to decide that for me. I will feel it if I wish to feel it.”

“You will just make it harder on yourself,” Carol points out. “When you come to realize that he’s sincere in not wanting a love match.”

“ _If_ I come to realize that,” Rick corrects. He nods his head firmly as if that will seal his words in stone. “He kisses me like he doesn’t wish to stop. That means something. It _does_. It has to.”

“I hope so, for your sake,” Carol says softly, and she pats his hand and changes the subject.

//

Much later that night, Rick is pacing in his bedroom, his sock feet whispering over the polished wooden floors and his nightshirt fluttering as he spins around at the end of each circuit. The room is bathed in soft golden lamplight and he should have been in bed quite a long time ago, especially since he’d feigned a headache to get his father to take him home early from Lord Jones’s ball and Abraham had agreed on the condition that Rick go straight to bed when they got home.

Rick had not had a headache. He’d simply found the whole affair ridiculously tedious without the prospect of a dance with his duke, and even though Daryl had sent a note to the Grimes house letting them know that he wouldn’t be in attendance, Rick had still spent most of the evening craning his neck to see if he could catch a glimpse of glittering sapphire eyes and artfully mussed hair.

No such luck.

It’s entirely possible, Rick knows, that Daryl truly did have pressing commitments that had forced him to beg off from the ball. He _is_ a duke, after all, and his responsibilities to his dukedom are of course more important than Lord Jones’s ball and a potential dance with a mere mister. But since the kiss in the garden three days ago, Rick hasn’t seen his betrothed at all, and frankly he’s starting to find himself rather annoyed by the whole thing.

“He can’t kiss me like that and then just disappear,” he tells his reflection as he passes by his dressing mirror. His mind drifts back yet again to the garden wall, to the ivy leaves in his hair and the way Daryl had brushed them out with careful fingers. There’s something there, he tells himself, and he has the distinct feeling that there’s something he’s missing, something that would explain why Daryl kisses him like a love match and then discards him like a second-rate convenience marriage in the very next breath.

He should just _ask_. Daryl doesn’t strike him as the brooding Gothic hero type--Rick is sure that if he could just get the duke talking, he could get at least some of the answers he needs so desperately. But everything is so _chaperoned_ , so _public_. Daryl might not be a brooding Gothic hero but he _is_ a private man, and Rick knows that if he has a prayer of getting a real conversation out of the man, he can’t do it beside the lemonade table at a dance or just outside the drawing room window while his father watches or while strolling through throngs of society’s finest in Hyde Park. No, he’ll have to find a way to get the duke well and truly alone. Somewhere they won’t be disturbed.

Somewhere like the duke’s bedroom.

//

This is simply _not done_ , and Rick knows it. He’ll be _ruined_ if he’s caught roaming the streets of London at night, alone and unchaperoned. Once he makes it to Daryl’s house, he’ll be in the clear--surely Daryl wouldn’t blame him for coming to _him_ \--but the trip over to the ducal townhome will be full of peril. Therefore, Rick decides that a disguise is in order.

Earlier in the Season, Lord Margaret Greene had thrown a fancy costume party, and as it happens, Lori’s boisterously curly blonde wig from her shepherdess costume is still tucked away in her wardrobe. Rick digs it out and puts it on, tying it back into a ponytail as best he can without enlisting the help of his valet. Next, he finds the most aggressively neutral outfit he owns, something that no one would look at and immediately think _Richard Grimes_. He struggles a bit with the cravat and almost calls Shane in to help him, but Shane isn’t the most trustworthy servant when it comes to secrets, so he decides that he’d better not involve him. Rick finally finishes the most basic tie he can think of and examines himself in the mirror for a moment before he slips out of the house and into the darkening night.

He’s never been to Daryl’s house, but that hardly matters. Everyone knows where to find the duke. But London is different at this time of night: quieter in some ways, without the birdsong or the newsboys or the merry laughter of ladies and gentlemen and children who are out doing socially acceptable things with one another, but also louder somehow, like fewer words are being spoken but the ones that _are_ come out deeper, darker, charged with the electricity of lightning in a summer storm. Rick can feel it, can trace the paths of his veins using the buzzing that’s flowing through them and he hurries along with his face turned down toward the cobblestone road, hoping that none of the carriages passing on the street contain people who might recognize him.

And then finally he’s there, climbing the steps up to the duke’s door. It takes him several minutes to gather the courage to knock on the heavy wooden door, but he manages it, and at length, the door opens to reveal a thin, earnest-looking man who must be Daryl’s butler. The man lifts his nose slightly.

“His Grace is not receiving visitors at this late hour. You may return in the morning, at a more civilized time.” The butler makes to close the door, but Rick has come this far and he will _not_ allow a mere _servant_ to stop him now, especially not when Daryl won’t have seen that he was there.

So Rick lifts his own nose and uses his very best authoritative-duchess voice. “I know this is not a particularly acceptable time for a visit, but it’s really quite imperative that I see Lord Dixon at once.”

The butler raises his eyebrow. “I’m quite certain that whatever you need can wait until morning.”

“And _I_ am quite certain that it cannot,” Rick says, then screws up even more courage and squares his shoulders. “So, you will let me in to see him. At once.”

“I most certainly will not,” the butler drones. “Good day, sir.”

“No,” Rick exclaims, physically blocking the door from shutting. “I must speak with him.”

“Sir!” The butler pushes at Rick, trying to shove him back through the partially-open doorway. “I must _insist_ that you leave the premises.”

“I will _not_ ,” Rick almost yells. His wig slips and hangs slightly askew on his head as he attempts to wriggle the rest of the way through the door.

“What the _devil_ is going on out here?” Daryl bellows from a doorway down the hall, where he’s standing with a candle and glowering at both of them.

Rick’s face breaks into a smile. “Daryl!”

Daryl blinks. “Mr. Grimes?”

The butler pushes at Rick again. “I’m terribly sorry, Your Grace. I’ll take care of this immediately. There is no cause for alarm.”

“May I come in?” Rick asks, leaning around the butler to lock eyes with Daryl and squirming just a little bit farther into the house.

Daryl blinks again, but this time the action seems to snap him into the present. “Yes, yes,” he says, striding forward. “For the love of God, Jim, let him in before someone _sees_ him.”

Jim frowns deeply but steps away from the door, letting Rick slide in through the opening. The butler pushes the door closed behind Rick and stands back, his hands folded primly behind his back and his eyes dark with judgment.

Daryl beckons Rick over and Rick straightens his wig and complies with the order, trying desperately to ignore the fact that Daryl isn’t dressed--at least not with any semblance of propriety. He’s wearing a heavy silk dressing gown that does little to civilize the loose tunic-style undershirt and the tight brown buckskins that make Rick’s mouth water, and Rick is overcome with the urge to push the gown off the duke’s shoulders and…

Well, he’s not precisely sure what he’d do after that, but his appendage appears to have some ideas, judging by the swelling it’s doing in his trousers at the sight of the duke in such a delectable level of _dishabille_.

_This is what I’ll be seeing every night for the rest of my life,_ he thinks, and then any coherent thought scatters away as he gets to Daryl and the duke slides an arm around his waist and pulls him in close against his side.

“Jim,” Daryl is saying, and from this close Rick can smell the scotch on his breath, can hear the just slightly slurred vowels in his speech. He takes the opportunity to curl in closer to the duke’s side, soaking in the warmth there as Daryl keeps talking to the butler. “You saw nothing, do you understand? Breathe a word of this to anyone else and I’ll have you tossed out on the street so quickly that you can’t even comprehend it.”

“Yes, sir,” Jim intones, lifting his nose again. “I understand perfectly.”

“Very well.” Daryl tightens his arm around Rick and starts steering him toward the door Daryl had come out of earlier.

Rick cranes his neck as if that will help him see inside the room any faster. “Is this… are these your chambers?”

Daryl laughs, scotch-scented and much looser than ever before. “I suppose so. It’s a chamber and it belongs to me. All of these chambers belong to me.” He waves the hand holding the candle and the flame flickers almost as drunkenly as the duke. “Can’t get rid of them, either. All entailed. Everything worth anything is entailed. Probably to keep me from just selling all my damn property and taking to the high seas with a patch on my eye.” He ushers Rick into the room and then closes the door behind them before blowing out the candle and setting it on a small table beside the door.

There’s a larger lamp burning on a desk on one side of the room and a lazy fire crackling in a fireplace, and Rick looks around for a bed and is disappointed when he only finds a sofa, upholstered in deep red luxurious velvet. “This isn’t your bedroom,” Rick says, frowning slightly, then lets out an undignified squeak as he feels Daryl’s arms slip around his waist from behind.

“God, no,” Daryl chuckles into Rick’s ear. The duke pulls Rick back against him and kisses his shoulder, then the side of his neck. “Can’t take you to my bedroom.”

Rick whimpers and arches his neck, offering his throat up for the duke’s wandering mouth. “Why not?”

Daryl splays his hands over Rick’s stomach and chest and puts his lips next to Rick’s ear again. “Because if I took you to my bedroom you’d be pregnant by sunrise.” He rolls his hips forward and Rick gasps as he feels the duke’s hardness press against his back.

“Daryl…” Rick whispers, putting his own gloved hands on top of Daryl’s bare ones.

“What are you doing here, Rick?” Daryl murmurs, letting his lips move against the curve of Rick’s ear as he speaks. “Besides testing the limits of my self-control?”

Rick moans softly but then blinks and attempts to gather his thoughts. “I wanted to talk. Without distractions. Without… time constraints.”

Daryl hmms against Rick’s skin and then spins him around so that they’re face-to-face. “Not sure I’m in the mood to talk,” he mumbles, then leans forward and captures Rick’s lips with his own, wasting no time in licking his way inside Rick’s mouth and sliding his hands down to Rick’s hips, fingers pressing in there like they did in the garden. Rick whimpers again and kisses back hungrily, and for a few moments it’s all passion and pressure and heat until, at length, Daryl reluctantly pulls back a little and rests his forehead against Rick’s. “You should go,” he whispers.

“Daryl--”

“You should go,” Daryl says again, a little louder this time. “I cannot… if you stay I cannot promise to be a gentleman for much longer.”

Rick bites his lip nervously and then lifts his hand to Daryl’s jaw, brushes just the tips of his gloved fingers against the rough skin there and wonders what it will be like to truly _touch_ the duke, skin-to-skin as he’s never touched anyone before. The very thought is so intimate, so _scandalous_. Not something that a proper fiance should do with his betrothed, at least not until the vicar has declared them man and husband before God. But oh, how he wants to, how he wants so very badly to feel the stubble against his fingertips, to reach up and see if Daryl’s hair is as soft as it looks. And for all that the duke had tried to sound authoritative, his eyes give him away when he looks up at Rick, strangely vulnerable in the firelight, and Rick can’t help but give in to his feelings.

He takes a deep breath, gathering up his courage, and then lowers his hand and very slowly pulls off his gloves and drops them on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could use a tiny bit of reassurance today... is this any good? Are you guys enjoying it? Tell Skari what you think. :)


	8. A Firelit Discussion

Daryl blinks and flicks his eyes to the snow-white fabric lying against the plush Persian rug, then looks back into Rick’s eyes. “Rick, what are you--”

“I want to touch you,” Rick says quietly, and even with as little knowledge of intimate relations as Rick has, it’s impossible to misinterpret the rapid darkening of Daryl’s eyes, the pupils expanding to almost overtake the blue irises altogether. Daryl’s hands tighten on his hips and his breathing grows ragged as Rick reaches up again, agonizingly slowly, and runs his fingers along Daryl’s jawline.

The feeling is incredible, Daryl’s stubble rough on his fingertips, the heat of the man’s skin with nothing to disguise it, nothing between them. Rick hasn’t touched another person without gloves on in _years_ , since he was a child, and suddenly he’s thankful for that, for the simple fact that his _husband_ will be the only one he’s ever touched like this.

Daryl turns his head to kiss the inside of Rick’s palm and then reaches up to grab his arm, holding it in place while he moves his lips over the sensitive skin of Rick’s inner wrist, tongue flicking over the pounding pulse there, keeping eye contact with Rick the whole time. Rick shivers and lets go of a tiny whimper and Daryl growls, rakes his teeth lightly across Rick’s wrist and then returns his hands to Rick’s hips and starts walking him backward toward the sofa.

“You should go,” Daryl murmurs, eyes still locked with Rick’s. He gets them to the sofa and then tugs at Rick’s hipbones to encourage him to sit down on it. “You really should.”

Rick lowers himself to the sofa and then twists his body and lies back onto the soft velvet, a thrill running through him at the choked gasp Daryl makes when he does it. “I want this,” he whispers, holding a hand out for Daryl.

Daryl laughs breathlessly and takes Rick’s offered hand, twining their fingers together for a moment before he swings his leg over and straddles Rick on the couch. “Do you even know what you’re asking for?”

“No, Rick admits, then swallows hard and pastes what he hopes is a confident look on his face. “But I know that _you_ do. That’s enough for me.”

Daryl leans down and kisses Rick’s throat, trailing his lips over the skin there. He takes hold of Rick’s inexpertly-tied cravat and slowly unties it, then tosses it to land beside Rick’s discarded gloves. “We shouldn’t,” he murmurs, then returns his mouth to Rick’s neck and dips his tongue into the newly-exposed hollow below his Adam’s apple.

“We’re to be married in three weeks,” Rick breathes, winding his arms around Daryl and arching his neck again. “Society will forgive us.”

Daryl rolls his hips down into Rick’s, pressing their groins together and earning a surprised gasp from Rick. “Richard,” he says, putting his fingers under Rick’s chin. “Look at me.”

Rick blinks his eyes back open and gazes up at Daryl, his features soft in the firelight but still looking very much like a creature of the forest, wilder than a duke has any right to be. “Yes?”

“I am far too drunk to turn you down right now, when you’re begging me for it like this,” Daryl whispers, then leans down and presses a quick kiss to Rick’s lips before pulling back to re-establish eye contact. “But I’m far too sober to take you without being certain it’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want,” Rick says quickly. He lifts his own hips up into Daryl’s and licks his lips at the soft groan and the fluttering of Daryl’s eyes that the movement earns him.

Daryl starts up a slow rhythm, rocking his body against Rick’s, and Rick clutches at his hips and arches his back again as Daryl bends down and breathes into Rick’s ear, “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

Rick moans then, loudly, as Daryl takes his earlobe between his teeth and tugs softly at it. “I want you to touch me.”

“Where?” Daryl purrs, rolling his hips harder into Rick’s.

 _Everywhere_ , Rick thinks, but there’s one place in particular on his body that seems to be the most interested in knowing how the duke’s fingers would feel, and he bites his lip and tries to work up the courage to suggest such a thing.

“Tell me.” Daryl drags his mouth over Rick’s jawline and nips at the lip Rick is biting.

“My--” Rick gasps at a particularly hard thrust and bends his knees, plants his feet on the sofa to give him more leverage to meet Daryl’s movements. He tries again for the words and can’t find the proper ones, so he reaches down and grabs Daryl’s hand, pulling it down and pressing it against the bulge in his pantaloons. “Here.”

Daryl slows his thrusting to a near-stop and pulls back, blinking at Rick in the dim, flickering light, a soft, playful smile hovering about his lips. “That’s very bold of you.” He squeezes the body part in question, nearly causing Rick to fly off the sofa.

“Y-yes,” Rick says. Daryl tries to move his hand away, but Rick catches his wrist and holds him in place.

“You want me to stroke your cock?” Daryl asks, pupils blowing even wider, leaving his hand where Rick had put it but not moving his fingers. “Is that what you want?”

Rick whimpers and lifts his hips, chasing some level of friction with Daryl’s hand while the new words for what Daryl is doing settle into his brain. “Yes,” he gasps out, more confidently this time. “Touch me. Daryl, _please_ …”

Daryl’s eyes darken at the request and he presses the heel of his palm down against Rick and rubs it firmly up his length. He leans down again and kisses Rick’s neck just below his earlobe, then drags his lips up and purrs,  ”I have so much to teach you, dearling, if you’ll have it.”  Rick moans and arches his neck, grinding himself up against Daryl’s hand as it moves, and Daryl chuckles and moves his mouth to Rick’s exposed collarbone, flicking his tongue over the deep V of it. “I want to give you everything you need.”

“I just need _you_ ,” Rick murmurs, sliding his hands under Daryl’s nightshirt and letting out a shuddering breath as his fingers splay over the duke’s heated skin. “You are all I will ever need.”

Daryl goes still then, his mouth pressed against Rick’s chest but his lips motionless, his hand on Rick’s manhood light and completely stationary. “You don’t know that,” he says, slowly lifting his head to look Rick in the eyes. Rick opens his mouth to protest, but Daryl talks over him. “You don’t. Please do not make promises like that to me.”

“I mean it,” Rick whispers. “I truly do.”

“You mean it _now_ ,” Daryl says. He pulls away from Rick and slowly stands up, leaving Rick’s body feeling unnaturally cold now that the duke’s weight isn’t taking the chill away from the room, and Rick makes a rather embarrassing mewl of disappointment. “Forgive me. I should not have taken such liberties with you.”

“I wanted the liberties,” Rick insists, reaching up and trying to catch Daryl’s hand to pull him back down on the sofa but having no such luck. “I wanted you to kiss me. To touch me.”

Daryl huffs out a humorless laugh but doesn’t say anything, and Rick pushes himself up on his elbows just slightly and tries his hardest to will time itself to flow backward for a few moments at least, back to when Daryl’s mouth was working its leisurely way down his neck and chest, back before he’d said whatever had upset Daryl so much.

After a long, awkward silence, Daryl clears his throat and holds out a hand to help Rick stand. “I should get you home before your father discovers your absence.”

Rick ignores Daryl’s hand but pushes himself up to a sitting position, then reaches down and picks up the blond shepherdess wig from where it had fallen from his head onto the sofa cushion. He looks down at the wig, remembering how pretty Lori had looked in it and how all the single folk--and some of the married ones--had kept their eyes on her all night. She’d been claimed for every single dance, including both waltzes: one with Daryl, of course, and the other with… well, come to think of it, Rick is fairly certain that the other waltz had been with Mr. Douglas. _Well, crumpets_ , he thinks, and he looks up at Daryl. “Were you in love with Lori?”

Daryl raises an eyebrow. “I believe I’ve told you that it would not have been a love match, either.”

“Yes, but…” Rick sighs and smoothes the wig on his lap. “You must have chosen her for a reason.”

“I did,” Daryl agrees. There’s another second of awkward silence, then Daryl sits down beside Rick and clears his throat. “I came to London on business. Not for the Season, it just… the timing coincided, I suppose. And I was at White’s one night, minding my own business and having drinks, and I heard Sir Gareth talking about… things. About how he’s glad that his wife is finally expecting again so that he can stop… visiting her.”

Rick turns his head back to meet Daryl’s eyes, but the duke keeps his eyes on the carpet. “Sir Gareth is your cousin, correct?” he asks, more to prompt the conversation along than anything.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Daryl says, grimacing. “And my heir, technically speaking, since Merle is not legitimate and I have no children of my own. So listening to him go on about his sopranos and his tenors and his scullery maids and his stableboys and then about how Lady Lancaster just isn’t _interesting_ enough to keep him faithful…” He shrugs, then sighs. “I decided that I’ll be damned if I get run over by a carriage next week and _that toad_ becomes the duke.”

Rick nods slowly, smoothing the wig in his lap again. “So you decided to marry.”

Daryl grunts in agreement. “Sir Axel came by to call on me the next day, and I begged him to let me come with him to the next event he was planning to attend. Which happened to be the ball Lord Harrison was hosting for her sister’s debut.”

“Where you met Lori,” Rick says, and Daryl nods.

“Sir Axel and I walked in the door of the ballroom, and other than Lord Harrison when I shook her hand in the receiving line… Miss Grimes was the first person I laid eyes on. So I asked Axel if she was married, and he said no. And so I chose her.” Daryl snaps his eyes to Rick’s, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction.

Rick blinks several times, running through the facts in his head, then clears his throat. “So you are saying that you proposed to Lori for no other reason than that she was _there_.”

Daryl shrugs, his shoulders sliding against the deep velvet of the back of the sofa. “And unmarried,” he points out. “And that Sir Axel knew her and could provide a quick introduction.”

Rick frowns deeply, narrowing his eyes at the duke. “Lord Dixon--”

“Daryl.”

Rick ignores him, cursing himself for the stupid, stupid decision to stand on the _left_ side of Lori rather than the _right_ side that night, thus putting Lori in the duke’s line of sight. “Are you aware that at that very moment, I was standing directly on the other side of my sister?”

“I believe we were introduced at the same time as your sister and I, yes.”

“Then why,” Rick presses, “did you not choose _me_?”

Daryl is silent for a few seconds, then he takes a deep breath. “Do you truly want to know the answer to that?”

Rick nods quickly, fighting down a lump in his throat. “I do.”

“I didn’t choose you,” Daryl says carefully, measuring out the words in his dark, river-rough voice, “because I needed a spouse to whom I was only moderately attracted. Just enough to reproduce with. Not enough to… distract me.”

Rick blinks slowly a few times. “And I distract you?”

“ _Terribly_.” Daryl gives Rick a small smile and heavy-lidded eyes to go with it. “Didn’t you notice?”

“From what?”

Daryl pauses and looks into the fire. “I neither need nor want a love match, Mr. Grimes. And it’s harder to avoid it when I want you like I do.”

A surge of hope floods Rick’s veins. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t avoid it.”

Daryl lets go of a bitter laugh and keeps his eyes on the fireplace. “I must insist that you trust me on this, Mr. Grimes. It’s better for both of us if we keep this arrangement as much a matter of business as possible.”

Rick grits his teeth and attempts to shoot knives from his eyeballs at the duke. “Forgive my boldness, Your Grace, but that was not the impression I got when you had your hand on my c-cock.” He clears his throat and lifts his nose imperiously. “Earlier.”

“Sex is business too,” Daryl mutters, and Rick narrows his eyes and hurls the wig at him. It hits Daryl squarely in the face and then falls to the sofa between them, and Rick crosses his arms tightly over his chest as Daryl stares at him, disbelief shining in his widened eyes.

“When we were speaking about affection,” Rick says in a very measured, faux-patient tone, “you agreed with me that being fond of one another would be desirable if we’re going to be married and raise children together, did you not?”

Daryl wrinkles his nose ever so slightly. “I believe I said that it wouldn’t be _un_ desirable, but I suppose I did agree with that.”

Rick’s nostrils flare at the unnecessary clarification, but he chooses to ignore it and continues, congratulating himself on being particularly magnanimous by avoiding further argument. “And you believe that I am fond of you.”

The duke raises an eyebrow very slowly. “That does appear to be the case.”

“And you are fond of me?” Rick presses, leaning forward a bit and speaking over Daryl as he opens his mouth to protest. “Perhaps you do not love me, and I accept that. But are you fond of me?”

Daryl lets out a long breath. “I am.”

“Then this is not just _business_.” Rick unfolds his arms from his chest and reaches out to touch Daryl’s hand where it’s lying against the velvet between them.

Daryl stares at their hands for a long time, then carefully turns his own hand palm-up and laces their fingers together. “You are correct. It is not just business, not for us. But it is not… love. It can’t be love.”

“Why not?” Rick asks, very quietly.

“Because if it was, it would destroy us both,” Daryl murmurs, still gazing at their joined hands. “Trust me on this, Rick. I will be a good husband to you. I will give you a good life, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that you are happy and taken care of. I _am_ fond of you and I will treat you with affection. But that is all I can offer you. Will that be enough?”

Rick sighs heavily. “I suppose it must be.”

Daryl picks up their joined hands and unlaces their fingers, curls his own hand under Rick’s and lifts it to his mouth. “Then we shall be happy together.” He lowers his lips, pressing a kiss to Rick’s knuckles as he had done before, only now there’s no material separating the duke’s mouth from Rick’s skin, and Rick whimpers softly, his cock twitching back to life in his pantaloons.

Daryl notices, his eyes flicking to Rick’s lap. He smiles and touches Rick’s chin. “I really should get you home,” he says, then leans in to place a soft kiss on Rick’s lips. Rick kisses back, and it’s a relatively chaste, proper kiss until he feels Daryl’s hand on his appendage. He gasps and pulls back, staring into Daryl’s eyes, losing himself in the blown-out dark of the duke’s pupils. Daryl speaks again, his voice low and deliciously rough in the fire-dark room. “I know you’re a virgin,” he says, and Rick shivers at the word, at the knowledge that he won’t be for much longer. “But have you pleasured yourself before?”

Rick blinks several times as if that will help him process the words. “Pleasured… myself?”

“With your hand,” Daryl says, rubbing Rick’s cock just for a moment, fingers dragging over Rick’s hardness. “Like this.”

“N-no,” Rick says, trying to keep his hips from jerking involuntarily up into Daryl’s touch. “No, never.”

Daryl’s smile widens and he tilts his head to whisper in Rick’s ear. “Then I have a request, if you’ll permit it. You can think of it as your wedding gift to me.”

“Anything you want,” Rick breathes.

He gives Rick a tiny squeeze that draws another gasp from Rick’s lungs. “Do not touch this without me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the support yesterday, guys! I'm so glad to hear that you're all this excited about this little story!
> 
> Also sorry to be suck a cockblock. But it's a Regency story... they're not gonna do the whole do this early ;) We'll get there though, I promise. I'm not going to leave you guys without any sexytimes!


	9. A Welcome Invitation

Another few days pass, and Rick only sees Daryl very briefly during them. The duke stops by every day during normal visiting times but doesn’t stay for long, explaining that he’s being run ragged by business matters and by attempting to find an occupation for Merle--or at the very least, a hobby that doesn’t involve opium dens or loose women. The looks he gives Rick are still heated, though, and at the end of each visit when Abraham suddenly desperately needs to attend to something upstairs for a few minutes…

Well, Rick has no reason to doubt the duke’s continued interest in him, that’s for certain.

Unfortunately, Abraham’s important upstairs business only ever takes two or three minutes at most, so Rick ends the sessions rumpled and starry-eyed and, to be quite frank about it, increasingly frustrated by the lack of resolution to any of their little trysts. Not that he really knows what that resolution would entail, but he’s quite sure that there must be some sort of relief, some moment when the duke’s hand on his cock would satisfy him instead of just making him embarrassingly desperate for more.

But he stays strong, even though his appendage has become astonishingly difficult to deal with since Daryl first touched it, as if it’s woken from a slumber it’s been in all Rick’s life and is suddenly ready to waltz.

In fact, the mere thought of the duke--his endless blue eyes, his wide shoulders, the angle of his cheekbones and the way his lips felt against Rick’s skin--is enough to rouse the beast and Rick has to flee the drawing room on more than one occasion lest he give little old Lady Miller a fit of the vapors at the sight of Rick’s tented breeches.

It’s during one of those spells when Rick is in his room, pacing back and forth on quiet feet and aggressively thinking of things that do not involve Daryl’s tongue--toenail clippings, spiders, how very much he detests lemon tarts and why on earth Mrs. Monroe continues to insist on making them--that he hears voices in the hallway. He pauses and then tiptoes over to the door, pressing his ear against it.

It’s his valet, Mr. Walsh, talking to one of the lower servants, a young man named Spencer. Rick frowns and listens, tugging absently at his hair.  

“--impossible these days,” Shane is saying. “Do you know how many times I have to re-iron his cravat in a day? And I’ve given up on bothering tying them in any kind of fashionable way because the duke just shows up and ruins all my work.”

Spencer snorts softly. “He’s probably already knocked up and just hiding it.”

“I doubt that,” Shane replies. “If Dixon had already had him properly, he wouldn’t be wound so tightly. He’d be _much_ easier to tolerate. Right now I just want to wring his neck for being completely impossible.”

“I can see if my mother would brew him some of her special chamomile tea,” Spencer offers. “He needs something to calm his nerves.”

“He needs a good spanking, is what he needs,” Shane grumbles. “But I suppose that will happen soon enough. Dixon seems like the type to get off on that.”

Rick blinks and leans away from the door for a moment, wrinkling his forehead in thought. Grown men do not get _spankings_ , and they certainly don’t give them to _each other_. He rolls his eyes and, just for amusement’s sake, pictures himself bent over Daryl’s knee, the duke giving him a few swats on the bottom like he’s a disobedient child who needs to be taught a lesson.

Only... that doesn’t particularly sound like much of a punishment, if Rick’s appendage has anything to say about it. Which, unsurprisingly, it does.

“Calm down,” he tells it, glaring down at himself. “I am not allowed to touch you, so I do not know what you expect from me.”

The organ in question does not respond, either verbally or by calming down, and Rick huffs and resumes his pacing. A few minutes pass in which he is attempting to recite the past Kings of England, then there is a polite scratching on the door.

“Come in,” he calls out, adjusting himself so that his condition is not so obvious.

Shane pokes his head in the door. “Pardon me, Mr. Grimes, but your father wants you in the drawing room. Do you require assistance?” His tone is unfailingly polite and respectful, exactly as it’s always been, and Rick tilts his head at the valet and wonders if _this_ is his normal voice and demeanor or if the real Mr. Walsh is closer to the somewhat crude man he’d heard speaking so candidly outside his door.

“No,” Rick says after a moment. “Tell my father I’m feeling… overtired.”

“Very well, Mr. Grimes,” Shane says, then a slow smile ripples across his face. “Shall I also give your respects to the duke?”

Rick bursts into motion, fluttering about and checking his hair in the mirror. “Why didn’t you say so?” he asks. “Oh, heavens, my hair is a _fright_. Shane. Come over here and fix it.” He flops down dramatically in the chair in front of his vanity mirror and starts attempting to wrangle his hair into some semblance of order, but for every curl he smoothes down, another breaks free, and after a few seconds Shane bats his hands away and takes over. Rick fidgets and frets and bites his lip until it’s pink and swollen, and finally-- _finally_ \--he looks halfway respectable and he flies from the chair down the stairs and into the drawing room.

Daryl is in his usual position, standing by the window and gazing out over London and toward Warwickshire, and when Rick walks into the room, the duke turns and looks at him and it’s like the sunrise over the ocean, brilliant and endless, and Rick floats over to him and smiles.

“It is _so_ nice to see you, Lord Dixon,” Rick breathes, and Daryl takes his hand and kisses his knuckles.

“And you, Mr. Grimes,” Daryl says, letting his lips linger on Rick’s hand for longer than strictly necessary before stepping back a bit. “I cannot stay long. But I wanted to extend an invitation to join me and my brother riding in the park tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Rick says, a smile breaking across his face as he imagines it, imagines riding through the morning mist with Daryl at his side. Most likely the duke would ride a massive black stallion, all power and dark mysterious beauty like the man himself, and a horse like that would complement Rick’s own dapple-grey--

Rick frowns then, thinking of Sylvester and their many happy rides together, then bites his lip and looks away. “But I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I don’t… have a horse.”

Daryl blinks in obvious shock and then raises an eyebrow. “You don’t have a horse,” he repeats.

“I did,” Rick assures him quickly. “Until recently, I had a very nice horse. A handsome dapple-grey. His name was Sylvester.” He snorts unhappily, much like the horse himself. “Well, I suppose his name is still Sylvester. But he isn’t here anymore.”

“And where might he be, if I may ask?”

Rick huffs and crosses his arms, glaring at the floor. “Scotland, I expect,” he grumbles. “My sister is a dirty, rotten horsethief.”

Daryl laughs, and the sound tugs a smile onto Rick’s face in spite of himself. The duke reaches over and touches Rick’s chin lightly with gloved fingers, and Rick looks up into his twinkling eyes and melts. “Then it seems I got the far superior sibling, does it not? I can’t have a horsethief for a duchess. That would be _scandalous_.” Daryl leans in slightly, drops his voice into an octave that resonates in Rick’s insides. “Get rid of your father and I shall kiss you.”

Rick swallows hard and shoots a frantic glance at Abraham, who is very studiously examining his morning paper in a seat across the room. “Father,” he calls out, pasting a pleasant, innocent smile on his face. “You needed to speak to Mrs. Monroe, did you not?”

Abraham looks up and narrows his eyes slightly. “What did I need to speak with her about?”

“About the… stuff,” Rick says. “And the things. You know what I mean, Father.”

“The stuff,” Abraham repeats, deadpan.

“And things,” Rick prompts, smiling.

Abraham sighs _incredibly_ hard and puts the newspaper down. “Lord Dixon, if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to my housekeeper for a moment. A very short moment. Two minutes at most.”

Daryl’s mouth twitches like he’s fighting off a smile, and he nods graciously at Abraham. “Of course, Col. Grimes.”

Abraham narrows his eyes at the two of them for a few seconds, then swishes his moustache and leaves the room. Daryl opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted by Rick’s hands in his lapels, shoving the duke backward until his back hits the wall.

“Kiss me,” Rick murmurs, but he doesn’t wait for Daryl to obey, just leans in and claims Daryl’s mouth with his own.

Daryl kisses back with enthusiasm and puts his hands on Rick’s hips, tugging him in closer until their bodies are flush against each other. “What has gotten into you, Richard?” he says between kisses, and Rick chuckles softly.

“I’ve _missed_ you,” Rick whines, then drags his lips down to kiss along Daryl’s jaw.

“You saw me yesterday,” Daryl points out. He slides his hands farther around Rick and cups his ass cheeks, pulling Rick harder against him and groaning softly as their rapidly-hardening cocks press together.

Rick rolls his hips forward and whimpers at the contact, then laughs breathlessly at the noise that sneaks its way out of Daryl’s throat at the motion. “Not for long enough.”

He reaches down and presses his hand against Daryl’s breeches, and Daryl hisses through his teeth and grabs Rick’s wrist. “Stop, dearling,” he whispers, pulling Rick’s hand away. “We can’t do this. Not here.”

Rick huffs in irritation but nods. “Very well. I can come to your house toni--”

“ _Don’t_ do that,” Daryl interrupts, gingerly pushing Rick back to arm’s length. “Do _not_ come to my house in the middle of the night again. Bloody hell. We’re lucky the whole _ton_ doesn’t know you were there before.”

Rick blinks to try to clear the haze of lust from his eyes and then drops his gaze to the carpet. “Very well,” he says again, his voice small and strained. “If… if you don’t want me to come to you--”

Daryl sighs, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not that I don’t want you to, Rick. It’s that I want it too bloody much. But we still have what, thirteen days--”

“Twelve,” Rick corrects automatically, inwardly blanching in horror at the idea of having to wait _thirteen_ days when it’s clearly twelve.

“ _Twelve_ days,” Daryl agrees, nodding. “Twelve days and then we can do whatever we want.”

Rick nibbles on his lower lip and then flicks his eyes back up to Daryl’s in what he hopes is a seductive manner. “You could procure a special license.”

Daryl lets out a bark of surprised laughter and shakes his head. “I don’t believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury would accept ‘I’m impatient to bed my betrothed’ as a valid reason for issuing a special license.”

“Then perhaps you should compromise me,” Rick suggests. “My father is right outside the door… if he walked in and saw you ravishing me--”

“ _Stop_ ,” Daryl groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “For God’s sake, Rick, I’m not a saint. You keep offering yourself to me like that and I’m going to--”

“I _want_ you to,” Rick says. He takes a step toward Daryl again and Daryl puts his hand up to keep Rick at a distance.

“We will have all the time in the world for such things when we’re married.” Daryl reaches up and smoothes Rick’s hair gently. “For now, I must take my leave. I have business with my steward. I shall call again tomorrow.”

Rick sighs heavily and frowns at Daryl. “You only just arrived.”

“I apologize.” Daryl glances out the window and rubs his own chin. “I assure you that I would much rather spend the morning with you than discussing wool prices with Mr. Martinez.”

“Then do so,” Rick insists. “Let me call in Spencer and we’ll send him out with a note of apology. And then I can send for biscuits and tea and we shall sit in the garden and--”

Daryl smiles and tugs Rick in for a sweet, chaste kiss. “I would love nothing better,” he murmurs against Rick’s lips. “But I do have to meet with my steward soon and so it would be more efficient to get it over with now.”

Rick puts his hands on Daryl’s cheeks and leans their foreheads together. “I miss you when you go.”

“And I you,” Daryl says, tugging Rick closer to him again. “But if I take care of these things now, then I don’t have to leave bed to take care of them after our wedding.”

Rick blinks and opens his mouth to respond, but there’s a loud crashing sound in the hallway and Abraham’s gruff voice announcing that he’d tripped over a potted plant on his way back into the drawing room and so instead Rick takes a step back, hoping that his situation isn’t too obvious.

“Col. Grimes,” Daryl says, bowing politely. “I was just taking my leave. But I would like to invite you and Mr. Grimes to come to my house tomorrow morning and go riding with my brother and me. You may use the horses in my stable so you won’t need to tire out your own.”

Abraham grunts, his moustache swishing, and then nods. “Very well, Your Grace. We shall call on you in the morning.”


	10. An Enlightening Ride

Rick and Abraham arrive at Daryl’s house precisely at the appointed time the next morning despite Rick’s best efforts to badger Abraham into leaving their own house early. They climb the stairs up to the front door and then Rick bounces on the balls of his feet while he waits for his father to knock on the door.

But he doesn’t, not immediately, and Rick pauses in his bouncing and peers over at Abraham. “Is something wrong, Father?” he asks, praying to whatever gods might be listening that there isn’t.

“I was just remembering the time I brought Lori here,” Abraham rumbles. “Before she decided she needed a Scottish holiday.” He looks at Rick, a strangely solemn expression hovering around his eyes. “We stood right here, waiting for the butler to answer the door, and she looked at me and said ‘Father, must I go through with this?’ And I told her yes, that she had to. It was too late to back out, I told her. And she just… looked at me with those big eyes she’s got and said ‘yes, Father.’” He clears his throat, turns his gaze to a carefully-pruned shrub in front of the house. “She ran off because I told her she had to marry this man. If something had happened to her on the journey… I would blame myself.”

Rick blinks and then carefully puts his hand on Abraham’s beefy arm. “She ran away because she was in love with Mr. Douglas,” he points out. “That is not your fault.”

“I told her it had to be Dixon,” Abraham responds. He sniffs hard, his moustache shimmying from side to side, and then he looks at Rick again. “She didn’t want to marry him and I told her she had to. I won’t do the same to you.” He turns fully and takes Rick’s hand off his arm, cradles it in between his own hands. “If you tell me you don’t want to marry him, I won’t make you. Your happiness is more important to me than two thousand pounds and a cow.”

A surprised laugh bursts from Rick’s lips. “A cow?”

“Dowries can involve livestock.”

“You gave the duke a _cow_ ,” Rick repeats, snickering a tad hysterically.

Abraham frowns. “It was a very nice cow,” he says, “and there was also the two thousand pounds.”

Rick smiles and pulls his hand out of Abraham’s grip. “You have nothing to worry about, Father. I’m very fond of the duke and I’m _overjoyed_ that I’m to marry him.”

“I gathered that,” Abraham mumbles, then claps Rick on the shoulder encouragingly. “I just wanted to be sure that you knew that I love you, son, and I would never part with you unless I knew you would be happy.”

“The duke will make me _very_ happy, Father,” Rick assures him.

Abraham grunts and turns back to the door. “Might need to make you a little less happy, for the next two weeks at least,” he mutters, then knocks on the door.

“Eleven days,” Rick corrects, resuming his bouncing while they wait for the butler, and Abraham rolls his eyes and murmurs something under his breath that Rick doesn’t quite catch.

A moment later, the butler opens the door and runs his eyes up and down Abraham, looking reasonably satisfied by whatever he sees, then turns to Rick.

Rick smiles at him. Jim’s nose shoots up into the air.

“Colonel Abraham Grimes,” Abraham says, handing the butler his calling card. “And my son, Mr. Richard Grimes.”

Rick hands over his own card, which Jim glances at dismissively. “It’s certainly nice to see you again at a more _appropriate_ hour, Mr. Grimes,” Jim intones, and Rick flushes a deep scarlet while Abraham’s moustache quivers in confusion. “I shall see if His Grace is at home,” Jim says, then dissolves back into the house and shuts the door behind him.

“Father,” Rick starts, but Abraham waves his hand in the air a little desperately.

“You know, Richard,” he grumbles, “I honestly do not want to know.”

Rick bites his lip to hold back a cheeky grin, and after a few seconds Jim opens the door again and shows them in to the drawing room, where Merle is perched on an armchair holding a delicate china teacup that’s filled with something that looks quite too amber to be tea. Rick decides not to inquire.

“Ah, good morning, Grimes,” Merle says to Abraham. “Try not to get lost in this room. It’s quite bigger than you’re used to, I presume.”

Abraham sputters, which only causes Merle’s grin to widen, and then the older Dixon turns said grin toward Rick. “And good morning to you as well, Mr. Grimes. You have quite a glow about you these days.”

Rick flushes slightly. “The summer air agrees with me,” he says, dropping into a polite curtsy.

“I think something else agrees with you, too,” Merle drawls, leaning back in his chair and smirking at Rick. “It’s my brother’s d--”

“ _Merle_ ,” Daryl says from the doorway. “For God’s sake, bite your tongue.”

Rick spins around and lets his face light up with joy at seeing the duke. Daryl is wearing impeccably tailored riding gear, from the fashionable deep-brown worsted wool tailcoat that emphasizes his broad shoulders all the way down to the tan riding trousers and the polished Hessian boots, and dear Lord he’s carrying a riding crop and Rick suddenly feels ever-so-slightly overheated in the large room. Daryl smiles back at him, his face melting into the expression like it’s not a voluntary change, and the moment is only broken by the self-satisfied chuckling from Merle.

“See, Grimes, what did I tell you?” he says, practically cackling. “Your son doesn’t seem quite as innocent as you keep claiming.”

Daryl smacks the riding crop against his own thigh and then points it at his brother. “Merle, if you say one more word against my betrothed’s honor, it will be pistols at dawn.”

Merle snorts. “You wouldn’t duel me, baby brother.”

“Try me,” Daryl grits out, and Merle appears to find some sense of self-preservation deep within his soul that allows him to be quiet for once. Rick presses the tips of his fingers to his lips to suppress a giggle while Abraham’s moustache quivers, clearly extremely self-satisfied. Daryl’s eyes flick over to Rick’s and then soften, the corner of his mouth curving slightly upward, and he crosses the room and takes Rick’s hand in his, kissing the knuckles with a brush of his lips. “Mr. Grimes,” he murmurs, and Rick’s knees feel weak and he’s very glad he’s brought his smelling salts just in case.

Daryl lets go of Rick’s hand and looks around at everyone. “Shall we head to the stables?”

//

The duke’s stables are quite large and impeccably clean, with many horses of varying types and colors hanging their heads out of their stalls and peering at the riding party as they walk past. Rick pauses and pets the nose of one, a lovely chestnut with broad white markings on her face. Daryl turns and smiles, joining Rick in petting the horse on its forehead.

“She’s very pretty,” Rick comments. “May I ride her?”

Daryl shakes his head and gives the horse an affectionate mane-ruffle. “No, not Nelly. She spooks easily, and I wouldn’t want her throwing my future duchess.” He shoots Rick a quick smile and Rick holds back a happy sigh.

“Have you picked one out for me, then?” he asks, and Daryl nods and takes Rick’s hand, tucking it back in the crook of his arm and then glancing back at Abraham and Merle, who are arguing mostly good-naturedly outside the stall of a slightly crazy-looking white mare.

“This isn’t quite proper,” Daryl murmurs, steering Rick toward another stall. “I’m not supposed to buy things for you before we’re officially wed. But I saw her yesterday and knew I had to have her for you. So I will ask you to pretend you’re only borrowing her until after the wedding, and then she can be yours.” He stops them in front of the stall and Rick looks inside to see a gorgeous palomino mare, her coat shining gold even in the relatively dim lighting of the stable. She whickers at them and flicks her tail, and Rick breaks into a grin.

“Oh, Daryl, she’s beautiful,” Rick breathes, turning and looking at the duke just in time to see a strangely open, vulnerable expression on Daryl’s face before it dissolves into a relieved smile.

“Do you approve?” he asks, and Rick nods enthusiastically.

“What’s her name?” Rick asks as Daryl motions to a stablehand to come saddle the mare.

Daryl smiles again and steps back as the stablehand goes into the stall with the horse’s tack. “We haven’t named her yet. I thought you might like to have the honor.”

Rick steps back too and smiles as the duke’s arm slips around his waist. He ducks his head and lets himself be pulled in close, their bodies pressing together along their sides. “Her coat reminds me of applesauce,” Rick murmurs, and Daryl laughs softly.

“Applesauce,” Daryl repeats, rolling his eyes but smiling while he does it. “Not spun gold, or amber, or sunlight. Applesauce.”

Rick snuggles in to Daryl’s side and smacks him lightly. “Do not make fun of me,” he chides, and Daryl chuckles again.

“I would never make fun of you, dearling.” Daryl lets go of Rick and then turns to face him. “So you approve of my choice?”

“ _Thoroughly_ ,” Rick assures him. He slides his eyes around the stable and then smiles at Daryl again. “Which one is yours?”

Daryl lifts his riding crop and points at a stall at the end of the row, then gives a quick whistle. A large black horse pokes his head out of the stall and whickers at the duke, who tightens his arm around Rick and leads him toward the stallion. “His name is Stryker. I’ve had him since the day he was born.” They stop in front of the stall and Daryl lets go of Rick to step forward and stroke the horse’s nose. “He’s not really built for speed, but he’s strong. Best horse I’ve ever had.”

Rick nods. “That’s how Sylvester was. Slow as molasses, but steady.” He looks back down the row at the palomino mare, who’s being led out of her stall and taken outside for mounting. “I do not imagine that Applesauce will be like that. She seems very light on her hooves.”

Daryl scoffs and rolls his eyes. “You are actually going to call her ‘Applesauce.’”

“Temporarily,” Rick says, smiling. “I’m sure I’ll come up with a better name as I get to know her.”

A stablehand walks over to saddle Stryker, and Daryl steps back and offers his arm. “Shall we?”

“Yes, of course,” Rick says, and he tucks his hand into the crook of the duke’s arm and lets himself be led out into the stableyard.

//

“You ride well,” Daryl comments as the horses settle into a comfortable gait, matching each others’ strides like they’d been trained to do so. Rick puts the slightest pressure on Applesauce’s left and the mare immediately turns just the right amount in that direction, following his cues without hesitation, and he admires her graceful movements for a moment before looking over at Daryl again.

“Thank you,” he says, smiling brightly. “It’s easy to ride well when I have such a lovely mount.”

A flash of something that looks rather naughty passes through Daryl’s eyes, but the duke seems to recover quickly. “Still. You have skill.”

“My father taught me,” Rick says, then turns slightly to look back at Abraham, who’s sitting confidently and steadily on one of Daryl’s geldings, Buttons, while Merle and his white mare dance around wildly beside him. “He’s very good with horses.”

“Your sister told me once, during one of our very few interesting conversations, that Col. _Morgan_ Grimes was good with horses as well.”

Rick hmms into the morning air, thinking of the kind-eyed man he’d only ever seen in the small portrait hanging in Abraham’s private study. “I suppose he must have been. He and Father were both cavalry officers.”

“He died when you were very young, did he not?” Daryl asks.

“Before I was born, actually,” Rick answers, shifting his seat a bit to match Applesauce’s gait better. “Lori was very small. She says she remembers him, although Father says he thinks she was too young to have true memories.”

“I am not so sure of that.” Daryl nods in greeting to another rider passing them and then looks back at Rick. “My mother said the same thing to me when I told her I remembered the day Merle came to live with us. I was about a year old at the time, certainly no more than two. But I remember someone holding me while I watched Merle get out of a rickety mail coach with a bag in his hands, looking around like he hated everything about Warwickshire.” He chuckles, shoots a glance back at Merle over his shoulder. “Much like he does today, to be honest.”

Rick smiles softly. “I’d wager you were a handful as a boy, Your Grace.”

“Not any more so than any other boy with too much money and not enough to spend it on,” Daryl replies with a laugh, then sobers abruptly. “Besides, my father was… quite strict. I was reprimanded if I made too much noise, or if I fought with Merle, or if I did any number of things that upset him in some way. So I was actually quite well-behaved.”

“Reprimanded?” Rick asks, tilting his head slightly in question. “With the rod?”

Daryl scoffs. “Of course not. Too many questions when an heir turns up with switch-marks on his back. No, my father reprimanded mostly by shouting. Telling me that he wished that I’d--that Merle could be his heir. That--” He breaks off, shakes his head. “He was not a pleasant man. I confess I wasn’t especially unhappy when I received news that I’d inherited the dukedom.”

“What of your mother?” Rick asks, his voice quiet. “Were you close to her?”

Daryl shakes his head again, his jaw tight and set. “She loved my father. Too much, it seemed. And when Merle came to us…” He sighs heavily. “That’s why love matches don’t interest me. One always loves more than the other. One always lies, or hurts, or strays. Never intentionally--I don’t think my father set out to fall in love with an opera singer. But he did. And my mother wasted away because of it, because she believed my father when he swore he’d never want for anything else if she’d only marry him. And he meant it, at first. I believe he did. But that doesn’t excuse his actions after they married. It didn’t break my mother’s heart any less because he was sincere in the beginning. In fact… I think it made it _worse_ , that he meant it. That she believed him. That they fancied themselves in love rather than just betrothed.”

They ride in silence for several long moments, and then Rick clears his throat. “Do you believe in love?”

“I do,” Daryl answers, almost too softly to hear over the horses’ hooves. “But I do not want it. I want for you and me to be happy, to be affectionate, to enjoy each others’ company. But I do not want love. Because it was what my mother wanted, what even my _father_ wanted, and it destroyed what would have been a good marriage if it hadn’t been there.”

“Just because it did not work for your parents does not mean it wouldn’t work for others,” Rick points out. “And we will have a good marriage. I’m certain of it.”

Daryl nods slowly. “Affection and fondness,” he says. “That is all. That will keep us happy. Not love.” He flicks his reins a bit, sending Stryker into a slightly faster gait, and the duke and his stallion pull ahead of Rick on the trail.

Rick sighs and looks behind him, watching as Merle nearly loses control of his mare because he’s too busy waving his hands animatedly at Abraham, describing what can only be a very large pair of breasts. Rick rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to the trail, to the man riding in front of him and the miles of road that meander through the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, for those of you just tuning in, that this story is complete and won't be abandoned! I'm posting four times a week: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday!


	11. A Bittersweet Memory

Rick sits in his bed, wearing his favorite nightshirt and a cap that’s supposed to keep his hair in order while he sleeps but which has never quite proved up to the task. The book in his hands is a silly one, some Gothic romance that’s far too dramatic and exaggerated for real life, but Rick had hoped that it would take his mind off of things after a somewhat strained ending to the trail ride and a surprisingly chaste goodbye kiss in the stables afterwards.

It hadn’t. If anything, the tragic love between mysterious Lord Chester Winklesworth and his ward, the beautiful Miss Tansy Tinsington, has just made Rick want to toss the book into the fireplace and scream in a very improper display of frustration.

It’s exhausting, the way Daryl seems to burn for Rick--body _and_ soul--one moment and then shuts him out the next. Rick could easily learn to live for the moments of fire, but they’re starting to make the moments of distance hurt even more, and isn’t that the very thing Daryl had been afraid of? That love would make the inevitable betrayal even worse in the end?

There’s a knock on the door, much louder and more insistent than the servants’ usual polite scratch, and Rick turns his book up to lay it on his lap as Abraham lets himself into the room.

“No dukes under the bed, are there?” Abraham asks, and Rick flushes slightly and shakes his head. Col. Grimes walks into the room and shuts the door behind him, then crosses over and sits down on the edge of Rick’s bed, down by his feet. “Just wanted to check on you. You seemed, er, melancholy. All day.”

Rick shrugs and stares at the cover of his novel in his lap. “It is nothing, Father. Just a mood. I’m sure a good night’s sleep is all I need.”

Abraham grunts, his moustache casting back and forth like it’s gathering up words to use. “Is everything alright with you and Lord Dixon?”

Rick scoffs. “As alright as they ever are.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Abraham says, frowning deeply. “What happened to the bouncing bundle of optimism that dragged me out of bed at dawn this morning?”

Rick sighs and smooths the cover of the book on his lap, thinking of Morgan’s portrait hanging in Abraham’s study, of how very little he truly knows about how their relationship had been. How it would have been if Morgan had not died, leaving Abraham alone to raise Rick and Lori by himself. “Were you and Papa… happy?”

Abraham blinks and sputters a bit, looking frantically toward the door as if he wants to leap back up and run through it. “Of course. But Rick, you know I don’t--”

“I know you don’t like to talk about him,” Rick interrupts softly. “But… the duke would have me believe that all marriages are tolerant at best in the end and that I should not aspire to love him because love is… undesirable. And I need to know if that’s true.”

“It’s a load of horseshit, is what it is,” Abraham grumbles, and Rick blinks and lets his mouth fall open in a perfect “O” shape. Abraham rolls his eyes. “Come now, Richard, you’re a grown man and this is my home, not the ballrooms of Buckingham Palace. I can say ‘shit’ to my adult son.”

Rick forces his mouth to close and he nods slowly. “Very well. Then… you loved Papa, did you not?”

Abraham sighs and looks at the door again. “I did. Still do. Even though he’s been… gone… for a long time.”

“And you were happy together? Even though you were in love?”

Abraham rolls his eyes again, the extra water there glistening in the lamplight but not spilling onto his skin. “We were happy _because_ we were in… because of our…” He huffs out a hard breath. “It’s really hard for me to talk about this, Rick. That’s why I haven’t before.”

Rick sighs heavily and picks at a loose thread on the blanket covering his lap. “I’m sorry to ask, Father. But I just need to know if it’s worth it. To be in love. Or if I should do as Daryl says and avoid it.”

Abraham is silent for a long time, sitting leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “It hurts. It’s been more than two decades and I still miss him. If I hadn’t lo--if I hadn’t…” He clears his throat. “If we’d just been a regular match, for titles or money or convenience or whatever reasons people get married to people they don’t care about… if we’d been like that it wouldn’t hurt so much. I wouldn’t still be… dreaming about him. Getting this awful lump in my throat whenever somebody tries to talk about him. Shit like that.” He takes a deep, ragged breath, his moustache twitching again but slowly this time, as if it’s just as sad as the man himself. “But it’s worth it.”

Rick bites his bottom lip and puts his book on the nightstand, then swings his legs off the side of the mattress and scoots down to sit next to Abraham on the edge of the bed. “Even though it makes you this sad?”

Abraham huffs out a humorless little laugh. “I’m glad I lo--” He stops, then sits up straighter and squares his shoulders. “I’m glad I loved him. If I could go back to the beginning and do it all over again, knowing it wouldn’t last… I’d still fall for him. I’d still marry him. Even knowing he’d ride out with the unit one day and never come home again. I wouldn’t trade five years of loving him for a lifetime of being _tolerant_ of my marriage. To hell with _that_.” He reaches up and wipes the back of his hand angrily across his face, letting out a loud sniff and then clearing his throat hard.

“I’m so sorry, Father,” Rick says, his voice quiet in the dim lamplight. “You don’t have to say anything else.”

“Yes, well, you have me talking about it now so I’m going to say what I was working up to saying the night before your wedding.” Abraham takes a deep breath and twists his body to look at Rick. “When I was pregnant with Lori… we talked about it. Morgan and me. We talked about what we wanted for our family and what sort of people we hoped our children would grow into. And… he would be proud of you. Of the man you’ve turned into.”

Rick blinks in surprise and tilts his head at Abraham. “Really?”

“Oh yes,” Abraham says, nodding decisively. “God, you’re so much like him. Not in looks, of course. You and Lori got his dark hair but nothing else, really. But… your sense of honor. Of doing right by people. How you always believe there’s good in the world, even when the rest of us can’t see it.” He sniffs again, his eyes red-rimmed but still not releasing the moisture onto his cheeks. “I wish you’d known him. Hell, I wish he’d even known _about_ you.”

Rick tilts his head farther and knits his brow in confusion. “He didn’t know about me?”

Abraham shakes his head very slowly. “ _I_ didn’t even know about you when he… when it happened. We hadn’t really talked about having more kids after Lori. I mean… we knew we would, eventually. And since I carried Lori, he was going to carry the next one. It was his turn, I told him.” Abraham chuckles softly at that. “But things happened, I guess. And then I got the letter. In the line of duty, they said. Shot off his horse by the enemy. Lori was… god, just barely past her first birthday, just learning to stumble around on her feet. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t take care of her. I tried. But I couldn’t. Because when she was a baby, she had these big brown eyes and they were just like his eyes and I couldn’t look at her. So I sent her off to live with my parents for a while.”

The lamplight flickers and Rick lays his hands in his lap, not speaking for fear that it will spook Abraham out of his story. After a moment, Col. Grimes continues. “I love your sister, Rick. You know I do. She’s my little girl and I love her more than I can even tell you. But you--and I will deny this to the grave if you ever tell her I said this--you’re… special. You saved my life. And so you’ll always be… I’ll always be in your debt for that.”

“I… saved your life?” Rick asks, still soft against the roughness of Abraham’s voice.

“You did.” He takes a deep breath, puts his hands on his knees, rocks back and forth a couple of times like he’s gathering himself up. “I sent Lori away. I knew they’d take care of her, that she’d be safe and happy with my parents. And then I just… faded away for a while. Didn’t take good care of myself. Started refusing to eat, started going out for walks and not stopping until I was literally shaking from exhaustion. Wouldn’t sleep in our bed but wouldn’t sleep in any other bed either, like that would be unfaithful of me, to sleep in a guest room. I’d just… sit and stare into the fireplace for hours, wouldn’t even look up when servants came in to tend the fire, like I didn’t even notice they were there.” He sighs heavily. “None of that was intentional. I wasn’t _trying_ to hurt myself. I just… forgot to care.”

Rick waits again, twisting his hands slowly in his lap and staring at them instead of at his father. He tries to imagine Abraham broken, hopeless, lost, and he can’t quite do it. He can’t quite picture this strong, brusque, _sturdy_ man like that, a ghost in his own life, a shuffling body empty of emotion.

He wonders how he himself would react if anything happened to Daryl.

“That went on for several weeks,” Abraham continues, breaking into Rick’s thoughts. “And then… even though I wasn’t eating hardly anything, I started getting sick. Mrs. Monroe--just a young slip of a thing at the time, big as a whale with Spencer but still handling the household like a damn quartermaster--she called in the doctor, made me sit still while he looked at me. And that’s when I found out about you.”  He laughs, sadly but with a tiny bit more humor than before. “Your father was supposed to carry our next child, so we’d been… being intimate… that way instead of the other way around, just in case. So I hadn’t even considered that I could be with child. There was one night we were pretty drunk, though, fooling around on the bank of some creek--” He breaks off, his face turning as red as his moustache. “Well. You don’t want to hear about that, I’m sure. But what I mean is… it had to be then. But still. I didn’t think I was expecting and so finding out about you… you were a miracle, Rick. That sounds dramatic, but it’s how I felt at the time. Like God had given you to me to make Morgan’s death bearable.”

Rick leans over and lays his head on Abraham’s shoulder, lets his father put his arm around Rick’s shoulders. He still says nothing, just lets Abraham hold on to him as they both just breathe.

“I didn’t care about myself then,” Abraham says, low and sadness-rough, “but I did care about you. You gave me a reason to get some rest, to eat enough, to wake up every morning and keep going. And I’ve always loved you so much for that.”

“I love you too, Father,” Rick murmurs. They sit like that in silence for several seconds, Abraham’s arm firm around Rick’s shoulders, and then Abraham gives Rick a gentle push to sit up straight again.

“So yes, Richard. Love is worth it. I loved your papa and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. And loving him got me you and your sister, and I wouldn’t trade that either.” He stands up and nods decisively to himself before turning to look at Rick again. “So don’t you let that duke of yours tell you otherwise. You love him if you want to love him. And judging by the way he looks at you, he won’t be far behind you.”

Rick nods, his head swirling with thoughts, and Abraham turns to walk toward the door. “Father?” Rick asks, and Abraham turns back to look at him with an arched eyebrow. “How do I know if I love him?”

Abraham sighs, his moustache quivering. “When you look at him and forget there’s anyone else in the world. When you kiss him because you feel like you’ll die if you don’t. That’s how you know.”

Rick bites his bottom lip, thinking of Daryl’s eyes in the garden, Daryl’s hands on him in the study, the way that Daryl’s breath had hitched when he took his gloves off and dropped them at the duke’s feet. “Do you think I already do?”

Abraham huffs and rolls his eyes. “Good night, Richard,” he says, and he closes the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want it on the record that Abraham made me cry several freaking times while writing/editing this. I'm such a sap.


	12. A Perplexing Discussion

Daryl appears at the Grimes residence at the earliest socially acceptable visiting time the next morning and whisks Rick away for a stroll in the garden, promising to keep them within sight of the drawing room window. Rick lets himself be led outside and walks immediately to his favorite stone bench, sitting down on it and waiting for Daryl to speak.

“I apologize deeply for my behavior yesterday,” the duke says after a moment, meeting Rick’s eyes with an intensity that goes straight to Rick’s toes. “I was insufferable and I caused you sadness, and I do not wish to be that sort of husband to you.”

“I should not have pushed you,” Rick says quietly, turning his gaze away from Daryl and instead watching a magpie hop along the top of the garden wall. “You have made it very clear what you expect from our marriage, and I should respect that.”

Daryl sighs and runs a hand through his already fashionably-messy hair. “Please do not say it that way,” he says, then sits down on the stone bench beside Rick. “With so much _regret_. As if you are already trapped in a marriage that you do not wish to be in.”

Rick blinks in surprise and snaps his eyes back to Daryl’s. “I do wish to marry you. Nothing will give me more pleasure.” He drops his gaze again and mutters, “Even if you insist upon being _difficult_ about it.”

Daryl actually laughs at that, a surprisingly easy and light sound that breaks through the tension. “I do apologize, dearling. After you left yesterday, my brother spent the entire afternoon and the better part of an evening regaling me with the many ways in which I had been a terrible bear to you.” He reaches over and puts his hand over Rick’s. “Normally I don’t pay any mind to the things Merle says, but I do believe he was correct in this one rare instance.”

Rick smiles and scoots a bit closer to Daryl. “I forgive you, Your Grace.”

Silence falls around them, broken only by the sound of rustling leaves and the calls of birds, but it’s a companionable silence, and Rick tilts his face up at the sky and closes his eyes.

“You’re lovely,” Daryl murmurs, and Rick feels a rush of warmth flow through his veins and center around his heart at the words. “Like this. Outside, in the sun, listening to the robins sing. Will you like Warwickshire, do you think?”

“I’ll like anywhere you are,” Rick says, flushing a bit at the praise. “And I’m sure I shall like it a great deal in its own right. I hear it’s beautiful there.”

“The forest is quite… breathtaking,” Daryl agrees. He picks Rick’s hand up and kisses his fingertips. “I don’t belong here, in the city. You can see that, surely. I pretend well enough, but I’m not society. I’m not nobility. I’m a grubby little boy who just wants to climb trees and track rabbits through the brush. I don’t feel that you can really _know_ me unless you’ve seen me in the woods.” He sighs softly but not unhappily. “That’s why I can scarcely wait to take you home with me. To show you my secret trails and the places I go when I want to be alone, when being the duke gets to be too much.”

Rick glances at the window to make sure Abraham isn’t peering out at them, then lifts his hand and trails his gloved fingers down Daryl’s cheek. “If you show me your hiding spaces, then you won’t be alone there anymore.”

Daryl arches into Rick’s hand like a touch-starved cat and closes his eyes. “I think it will be alright to have you know my secrets. I find that I trust you with them.”

 _But you won’t love me_ , Rick thinks, but he pushes that thought away and instead focuses on Daryl’s hair in the sunlight filtering through the trees, on the easy smile that flirts along the duke’s lips when he talks about the forest, on the way the mask has slipped and he can see through to the real Daryl Dixon for at least this moment. “Tell me my future,” he murmurs. “Tell me what we’ll do once we’re home.”

Daryl smiles at him, just the barest uptick of the corners of his mouth but a sparkle in his eye that makes it seem _real_. “I’ll show you around the manor, of course. Introduce you to the servants, show you your chambers and how to get from yours to mine with the most possible haste.” He laces their gloved fingers together and squeezes. “Then I’ll take you around to the village, let you meet the tenants, introduce you to my steward. Show you the stables and the ruins and the orangery. Then I will take you out into the forest and show you the spot where I like to swim in the summertime. Show you where the pheasants nest and the deer move through the trees like pagan spirits. And _then_ ,” he says, lowering his voice into the low, sandpapery register that does interesting things to Rick’s insides. “Then I’ll lay you down under my favorite outcropping and make love to you until the sun goes down. Make you cry out until you’re hoarse with it. Teach you everything you’ve been wanting to learn.”

Rick swallows hard and looks at the window again, but this time Abraham is standing there, arms crossed and watching them, so Rick resists the urge to lean forward and let Daryl devour him. “Daryl,” he rasps, cutting his eyes very deliberately toward the window so that the duke knows they’re being watched.

Daryl flicks his own gaze to the window and then lets out a breath. “In eleven days,” he says, “I will not have to worry about what your father thinks.”

“ _Ten_ days,” Rick corrects him, still breathless from the duke’s words. “Only ten.”

Daryl laughs and kisses Rick’s knuckles again. “Ten, of course. My apologies.” He sighs a bit, then smiles ruefully at Rick. “Your father would no doubt like for us to rejoin him in the drawing room, but I’m afraid I’m in no state to be seen at the moment. We should talk about something less… scandalous.”

Rick lets out a somewhat horrified giggle and reaches up to tug on his cravat, which suddenly feels rather tight against his throat. “Very well. Let’s discuss… candlesticks.”

Daryl snorts with laughter--real, _loud_ laughter this time--and pulls Rick closer to him. “Ah, to hell with what your father thinks,” he says, and he kisses Rick full on the mouth.

Rick melts against him, whimpering very softly as their lips move ever so slightly against each other, and he’s _almost_ decided that the paving stones of the garden are just as good a place to be made love to as the forest floor in Warwickshire when the door from the house opens with a loud bang.

“Richard,” Abraham practically bellows. “You’re needed inside.”

Daryl pulls back immediately and bites his lip as if to hold back a rather inappropriate chuckle, then smiles into Rick’s eyes and stands up and offers his arm to Rick. “I meant to ask if you planned to attend Lord Chambler’s ball two nights hence?”

Rick stands from the bench and slides his hand into the crook of Daryl’s arm. “We do plan to attend, yes.”

“Then may I be so bold as to offer to come here before you leave, so that we can take my carriage to the ball? Your father is, of course, welcome to ride with us, as is only proper.”

Rick smiles. “I’m sure that would be very nice, Your Grace. I will ask my father if he will allow it.” They walk a few paces closer to the house, then Rick pretends to have only just now noticed Abraham’s presence in the garden. “Oh, Father. Lord Dixon has just invited us to ride with him in his carriage to the ball at Lord Chambler’s home.”

Abraham crosses his arms over his chest and scowls. “I suppose it would be nice to arrive together,” he grumbles after a moment.

Daryl nods graciously and the three of them return to the drawing room, where Mrs. Monroe has set up a tray of tea and--to Rick’s disgust--lemon tarts. And this time, the duke stays for more than just a few minutes, only leaving Rick’s side when the fashionable visiting hours end, and it occurs to Rick as his betrothed takes his leave that ten days has never seemed quite so long before.

//

The next morning, it’s Carol who is waiting on the doorstep when Basset begins allowing visitors, and Rick has only just finished his morning scone when she bursts into the room. “Richard,” she exclaims, drowning out Basset’s introduction, and she bustles across the room and drags Rick down onto the sofa with her, clasping their hands together between them.

“Good morning to you too, Miss Horvath,” Abraham mutters, then bows at a very flustered Dale Horvath and starts up a conversation with him that Rick can’t quite follow on account of Carol hissing insistently in his direction.

“What is it, Carol?” Rick asks, frowning and tilting his head.

“I’ve just had new information from Miss Lerner,” Carol says, her voice low and quick like a grass snake. “About your wedding night. I thought it of the _utmost_ importance to inform you immediately.”

Rick blinks several times, eying their fathers across the room and adjusting his volume so that they surely can’t hear. “What have you learned?”

“Well,” Carol says, shooting her own glance at Abraham and Dale, “apparently what she told me before was… well, it was not _wrong_ , it was just incomplete. The part where he will put his appendage in your mouth is quite accurate, and it’s my understanding that is how one gets with child. But.” She pauses for dramatic effect, looking very smug indeed at being the Imparter of Wisdom. “There is another intimate act, purely for pleasure, which Miss Lerner thinks that the duke is very likely to try.”

“Tell me,” Rick breathes, clutching her hand tighter.

Carol leans forward slightly. “Your _nether regions_.”

“My--” Rick stops abruptly, furrowing his brow.

Carol nods, her short ringlets bobbing as her head moves. “He will put his appendage inside you through your…” She waves at Rick’s body very vaguely.

“Nether regions,” Rick supplies after a moment.

“Yes.” Carol nods again, just once this time. “Precisely.”

“I think, Carol, that Miss Lerner is taking you for a fool,” Rick says, lifting his nose in the air. “That does not seem to be something that would be very pleasant, and I have it on good authority that marital relations are very pleasant indeed.”

Carol raises an eyebrow. “On whose good authority?”

“Lord Dixon’s,” Rick replies. “He has _assured_ me that I will be pleased with the event. And…” He trails off, his cheeks warming as thoughts flash through his mind of the things he and Daryl have done. “Nothing we have done so far has given me reason to doubt him.”

Carol’s eyes take on a rather unsettling gleam. “And what, pray tell, have you done?” she asks, her mouth twitching as if she very much wants to smirk.

“Things,” Rick says, looking around for anything that can distract Carol from the conversation. “Oh, look! More lemon tarts.” He stands and walks to the tray, picking up the tea kettle and pouring cups for everyone.

“You hate lemon tarts,” Carol mutters, but Rick ignores her, and after he’s wasted all the time he can possibly waste by serving tea and tarts to everyone in the room, they settle back on the sofa.

Rick takes a bite of his tart. He grimaces.

“Will you at least tell me what it’s like once you’re married?” Carol asks him after a moment.

“In due time,” Rick agrees, then smiles very slowly. “That is, if Sir Axel hasn’t told you everything before I get a chance.”

Carol sputters, tripping over her words to assure Rick that she and Sir Axel have _never_ , that it wouldn’t be _proper_ , that unlike _some_ colonel’s sons she and the baronet are avoiding scandal by refraining from intimate acts until marriage, _not_ that they’re getting married of course. Rick just smiles and sips his tea, idly wondering how exactly one gets one’s nether regions involved in the sorts of things he and the duke have been doing and whether that will be something he will enjoy.


	13. A Scandalous Drive

The following evening, Daryl and Merle arrive at precisely the agreed-upon time to pick Rick and his father up for the Chambler gala, and Rick practically floats on air as the duke leads him outside and to the carriage. As Daryl hands Rick up into the ducal coach, resplendent with the Dixon crest carefully inlaid in silver on its doors, Merle gives a whistle.

“Hey, Duke,” the older Dixon calls out. “The colonel here seems to have forgotten his pocketwatch.”

Daryl blinks, and Rick pauses with one foot in the door of the carriage and the other still on the step outside of it. “I’m… terribly sorry?” Daryl offers, looking at Rick for more information. Rick just shakes his head very slightly and shrugs, and the duke turns back to Abraham. “Do you require assistance, Col. Grimes?”

“No,” Abraham growls out, shooting Merle a pitch-black glare that makes _Rick_ flinch, even though it isn’t remotely directed at him. “I don’t need my watch. We’ll be late for the ball as it is. We should go.”

“Nonsense, Hammy,” Merle says, clapping Abraham on the shoulder and sending the colonel’s moustache into a quivering bundle of rage. “Can’t go anywhere without your pocketwatch. Here, why don’t I help you find it, and Duke here can take your boy to the ball?”

Abraham narrows his eyes and looks at Daryl as if the duke is a fox and Rick is a plump, juicy hen. “I don’t think that’s… _proper_.”

“Eh, they’re getting married in less than a fortnight--”

“Eight days,” Rick murmurs, and Daryl chuckles softly and squeezes his hand--

“--and anyway, we’ll be right behind them. How much scandal can they really get into between here and Chambler’s house?”

“Nine months’ worth,” Rick thinks he hears Abraham mutter, but it’s cut off by Merle bustling the two of them back toward the door to the Grimes residence while Daryl just watches, not saying anything until Basset has closed the door behind the other two men.

For a moment, there’s silence that’s only broken by the snorting and impatient pawing of the horses and the pounding of Rick’s heart. And then Daryl turns slowly and looks at Rick. “We can wait for them,” he offers, but he licks his lips and whatever sense of propriety was left in Rick flies away into the night. Rick tugs on Daryl’s hand, attempting to pull him into the carriage, and Daryl lets him, pausing only long enough to instruct the driver that he believes the fastest course to the Chambler residence would take them through Kensington Gardens.

Rick swallows hard as he settles into the seat, a map of London shimmering in his head and crystallizing into easts and wests and the way that Lord Chambler most certainly does not live anywhere near Kensington Gardens. Such a detour will add at least another twenty minutes to the ride. Thoughts of appendages and gloveless hands and the duke’s lips flit through Rick’s mind like sparrows, lighting briefly and then flying away, interchangeable images and desires that never quite sit long enough for Rick to get a good look at them but provide him with a general idea of what’s to come--even if that idea is only as clear as the single thought of _yes_.

Half an hour of sitting in a dark space with the Duke of Bettsville. With _Daryl_. Rick surreptitiously feels in his waistcoat pocket for his smelling salts and reminds himself that he’s expected to be _proper_. No whiffs of scandal. He and the duke will make idle conversation about the weather and the state of the roads and that will be it. Rick nods decisively and steels himself for the temptation.

Daryl gets into the carriage himself and sits on the seat across from Rick, his snow-white cravat elegant and glowing in the dim light from the lampposts outside, and Rick’s already-pounding heart leaps into a fast-paced hammering beat as all thoughts of propriety fade away and he tries to decide whether to kiss Daryl immediately or whether he should spend a few moments pretending that he still has the capacity to be a proper young man with proper, non-scandalous interests when the duke is sitting across from him looking so _dashing_.

“Lovely night,” Daryl murmurs, and Rick lets out a breathless huff of laughter at the statement.

“It is indeed,” he agrees, tilting his head to look out the window even though he’d much rather be looking into the duke’s eyes. “The moon is out.”

Daryl nods, and Rick can feel his gaze licking like flame across Rick’s skin even without looking to confirm it. “It does appear to be.”

Rick folds his hands in his lap and looks down at them, trying to calm his nerves. Carol’s words about nether regions flutter through his head, joining the other sparrow-thoughts and then pushing them aside, the strangeness of them demanding to be heard, to be explained. So he clears his throat delicately and keeps his eyes on his gloved hands as he speaks. “I have… a question.”

Daryl grunts softly in encouragement, and Rick takes a deep breath. “I have heard that you might… choose to touch me in a way that… seems…” He trails off, thinks about the best word to use but comes up empty. “Strange,” he says at last. He swallows hard, then lifts his head ever so slowly to meet Daryl’s eyes.

Daryl’s mouth twitches upward. “And what is it that you’ve heard, Rick?”

Sighing softly, Rick forces the odd words out of his mouth. “That you will put your… cock… inside me through my… backside.”

Daryl bites his lip, his eyes twinkling in the dark carriage. “Yes, I’m very likely to do that.”

Rick swallows audibly. “Will I… like that? Will it…”

“You will,” the duke says. “I’ll make sure of it.” He pauses as if thinking, tapping his fingertips on his thigh, then rumbles, “Come here.”

The fluttering in Rick’s stomach intensifies and his breath hitches in his throat, but he quickly discovers that he doesn’t have even the slightest desire to say no to his betrothed. Rick finds himself across the carriage before he even consciously decides to move, and Daryl puts his hands on Rick’s hips and situates him so that Rick’s knees are on either side of Daryl’s thighs on the wide carriage seat. The duke smiles up into Rick’s eyes and then they’re kissing, hungry and deep and _scandalous_ , and all of Rick’s nervousness melts away because of course Daryl will take care of him. Of course he will make anything they do feel like perfection, like heaven mixed with just the right amount of sin to make it sparkle in his veins. Rick whimpers softly and pulls back a bit, tugging off his gloves, and then lifts Daryl’s hands to pull the duke’s gloves off as well.

Daryl growls and returns his hands to Rick’s hips as soon as the gloves are off, sliding his fingers under the fabric of Rick’s coat and slipping Rick’s undershirt out of his waistband. “Want to touch you,” he murmurs, and Rick whimpers and kisses him again, slipping his tongue into Daryl’s mouth and feeling trails of flame trickle along the skin of his lower back as the duke’s fingertips slide over his flesh. Rick gasps at the sensation, at how _intimate_ it feels to have Daryl’s hands on his skin, and even though he’s not afraid anymore, his pulse hammers in his throat in anticipation of whatever will come next. Still kissing, Rick puts his palms against Daryl’s chest and curls his fingers into the fabric of his waistcoat, then lets out a low moan as Daryl’s hands slip below his waistband to cup his ass cheeks, skin-to-skin.

Daryl chuckles at the moan and digs his fingers into the flesh there, pulling Rick closer up against him, and Rick rocks his hips down into Daryl’s lap and mewls. “I want you,” he breathes into the dark air between them, still not knowing exactly what he’s asking for but trusting that Daryl will understand anyway. “Daryl, I _want_ you.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Daryl hisses, leaning forward and pressing his lips against Rick’s neck, dragging his mouth over Rick’s skin in a heated kiss.

Rick arches his neck to give Daryl more room, and Daryl swiftly unties his cravat and tosses it onto the floor of the carriage. Rick whimpers and buries his fingers in Daryl’s hair, remembering being close like this in the duke’s study, the words that Daryl had growled into his ear. “Take me.”

“I’m not going to take you for the first time in a damn _carriage_ ,” Daryl rasps. “But… I can show you how it will feel. Something of how it will feel, in any case.” He reaches up, pressing his fingers against Rick’s lips. “Suck them,” he demands, and Rick blinks and tilts his head at Daryl, unsure of why the duke is asking this of him. Daryl pulls Rick in closer and kisses his jaw just below his ear. “I’m going to put my fingers inside you,” he practically growls, the roughness of his tone making Rick shiver. “So get them wet.”

Rick’s cock gives a little jerk at that, clearly more knowledgeable on the subject of what is about to happen than Rick himself is, and he rocks forward so that it presses against Daryl’s stomach. Daryl’s breath catches in his throat and presses his fingers more insistently against Rick’s lips. “I trust you,” Rick whispers, his lips moving against Daryl’s hand. “Do I… unfasten my trousers?”

Daryl doesn’t answer, just moans and drags his lips down Rick’s neck and starts sucking on the skin just above his collar. Rick gasps and takes Daryl’s fingers in, opening his pants as he sucks, and as soon as the waistband falls loose, Daryl jerks his fingers out of Rick’s mouth and reaches down to massage Rick’s entrance lightly. “Hold on to my shoulders,” Daryl says, kissing Rick’s lips softly. “Don’t want you to fall.”

Rick nods quickly and slides his hands onto Daryl’s broad shoulders, digging his fingernails in and trying not to think too hard about the odd feeling of having another person touch his most private places.

“Relax,” Daryl says quietly. “It will feel good. I promise.”

“I trust you,” Rick says again, and he takes a deep breath and systematically relaxes his entire body, letting all the tension fade out of himself while he concentrates on the pounding of his own heart.

“You’re perfect,” Daryl says, dragging his lips over the side of Rick’s neck. He reaches down with the hand not occupied behind Rick and slowly draws Rick’s already-aching cock out into the open. “Let me touch you.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rick breathes, shuddering at the feeling of having Daryl’s firm, strong hand wrapped around his heated flesh, so much closer and warmer and more decadent than such a touch had been when there were layers of fabric in the way. It’s tight and it’s perfect and when Daryl starts leisurely stroking him, Rick cries out loudly enough that Daryl lets go and presses his index finger over Rick’s lips.

“Quiet, dearling,” he murmurs, moving his finger away and replacing it with his own lips. “We don’t want all of London to hear us.”

“S-sorry,” Rick gasps out, moaning again as Daryl wraps his fingers around his cock again and goes back to stroking. “Oh, heavens, _yes_.”

Daryl chuckles and speeds up his stroking, then squeezes the base of Rick’s cock deliciously tight at the same time that he slips a finger inside Rick’s body.

Rick’s eyes fly open and he forgets to breathe for a moment as his eyes lock with Daryl’s and his body is overcome with competing desires--to push Daryl away and rid himself of the strange, uncomfortable stretch of having part of the duke inside his body and to pull him closer, farther in, to never let him go and to beg him for more of this.

“Alright?” Daryl whispers, slowly pushing his finger in and sliding it back out, setting up a rhythm that matches his strokes on Rick’s appendage.

Rick tries to agree, to say that yes, he’s alright, but he can’t quite form the words for it and so instead he squeezes his eyes shut and nods quickly, experimentally wriggling his hips and then gasping when Daryl’s fingertip brushes the very edge of something that makes his whole body feel like it might dissolve into light, like embers swirling away from a roaring blaze. “ _That_ ,” he gasps out. “Do that again.”

Daryl kisses him, his lips curving up against Rick’s. “As you wish, my little duchess,” he murmurs, then slowly adds another finger, stretching Rick out even more and making him moan again. Daryl goes back to pumping his fingers slowly in and out of Rick’s body, then he curves them just the slightest bit and on the next push, he _drags_ his fingers over the same spot again.

Rick’s back arches so deeply that he almost loses his balance on Daryl’s lap, but the duke holds him still, leaning forward to kiss his exposed throat with lips and teeth. Rick moans and rocks his hips, chasing both the friction of Daryl’s hand on his cock and the delirious pressure of Daryl’s fingers deep in his body. “Daryl,” he gasps, letting go of his shoulders to twist his fingers in the duke’s hair and hold on as if the strands are the only thing keeping him tethered to Earth.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Daryl whispers against Rick’s skin, his own hips bucking upward enough that Rick can feel the duke’s hardness against his thigh. “Do you have any idea how goddamn beautiful you are like this?”

“Daryl,” Rick says again, pressure building inside him and blocking out every thought in his mind besides the overpowering need for resolution, for some kind of release, because if there isn’t some kind of end to this then Rick is certain that men would go insane from the delicious torture of it. Daryl’s fingers are perfect, and they’re relentless in the way they’re playing him like a musical instrument, the slide of the bow and the plucking of strings making Rick’s entire body sing like a symphony. Rick feels the crescendo rising, his body tensing up in anticipation, and he pulls on Daryl’s hair and whimpers. “ _Please_.”

“Come for me, Rick,” Daryl rasps, pressing his fingers against the spot inside Rick that makes his eyes cross. He lets go of Rick’s cock for a moment to grab a red silk handkerchief from his pocket and he drapes it over Rick’s throbbing length, then wraps his fingers around it again and starts stroking with the fabric, and the change of sensation from damp flesh to cool, whispering silk pushes Rick over the edge. He lets his body jerk, grinding his hips backward against Daryl’s hand to get the duke’s fingers as far inside him as possible, then throws his head back and cries out to the ceiling, pleasure washing over him as his cock pulses and empties into the handkerchief.

Then the feeling breaks, and Rick slumps forward into Daryl, resting his head on the duke’s shoulder and panting heavily, his whole body wracked with shivers and sighs, and Daryl slips his fingers out of him and carefully cleans him up with the handkerchief, then wraps his arms firmly around Rick’s back and murmurs into his ear, soothing him with hands and voice and lips while Rick floats back down from the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See guys, I told you it was gonna be explicit eventually :)


	14. An Amorous Dance

When Rick’s breathing returns to normal, Daryl lifts him off of his lap and sits him down gently on the seat beside him before reaching into the floorboard to gather up their discarded gloves and Rick’s neckcloth. Rick fixes his clothing with shaking hands, tucking his undershirt back inside his breeches and fastening them, smoothing his waistcoat, gingerly patting his hair and finding with great relief that it has stayed more or less in place through the whole interlude. When he’s done, Daryl motions for him to turn toward him, and the duke loops the neckcloth around Rick’s neck and starts tying it with deft fingers.

“You know how to tie a cravat?” Rick asks, his voice strangely muffled and raspy, his cheeks burning with sudden embarrassment at asking such a mundane question when the duke had just finished pulling him to pieces and then glueing him back together in a new configuration, a new person, someone _worldly_. Someone a touch scandalous, a touch wicked, someone who belongs, heart and soul, to Daryl Dixon.

Daryl’s mouth curves up in a soft half-smile and Rick’s heart does a wild cartwheel in his chest. _I love you_ , he thinks, and this time there’s no uncertainty, no nagging voice in the back of his mind that asks him if he’s sure, if he even knows what love means. No, he is in love with the duke, in love with his betrothed, and nothing in the world will ever be the same again.

“I know enough to get by,” Daryl says, breaking into Rick’s epiphany. “It won’t look as elegant as it did before. We can only hope that your father will not notice.” Daryl finishes the last of the ties and then touches Rick’s chin. “Did you enjoy that, dearling?”

Rick sighs happily and reaches up to put his fingers on Daryl’s wrist. “I did. But I knew I would. You told me so.”

Daryl leans forward and kisses Rick’s lips very softly. “You have much faith in me.”

“You’ve given me no reason not to,” Rick says, running his hand over Daryl’s neck. “Daryl,” he starts, but at that moment the carriage slows and stops, and there’s a small lurch as the footman jumps down to open the door.

Daryl and Rick both hurriedly pull their gloves back on and Rick flings himself across the carriage to sit on the opposite bench as is proper, wincing as his bottom comes in contact with the leather seat. “Ow,” he mutters under his breath, and he hears a little chuckle from across the carriage.

“My apologies,” Daryl says, good-natured humor lacing his voice like brandy in a snifter, and then the door is pulled open with a flourish and the footman holds out his hand to help Rick down from the carriage.

Abraham and Merle are already there, waiting in front of Lord Chambler’s house. Abraham’s face is as red as his hair and his arms are crossed tightly across his chest, his biceps so tense and flexed that Rick is momentarily concerned about the structural integrity of the seams of his father’s tailcoat. Merle, for his part, has a self-satisfied smirk on his face like a mouse who’d gotten into the larder.

Daryl climbs out of the carriage and turns to Rick, totally ignoring the other two men and the daggers that Abraham’s eyes are throwing at him. The duke holds out his hand and Rick puts his own in it, feeling a dizzy smile settle on his face as Daryl leans in to kiss his knuckles. “I hope that you will save me a waltz, Mr. Grimes?” he murmurs, leaving his lips on Rick’s gloved hand and letting his blue eyes twinkle up at Rick through his eyelashes.

Rick nods quickly and attempts to agree, but the words die in his throat and he has to clear it to speak. “Yes, of course,” he manages after a moment, and Daryl nods and steps away as Abraham grabs Rick’s arm and tucks it into his own.

“I’ll take my son inside now, Your Grace,” Abraham says, spitting out the last two words like they taste rather foul. “It seems that the two of you may need some time apart.”

“Father--”

Abraham glares at Rick and cuts in. “You are _not_ married yet, boy, and if he got you with child--”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Grimes,” Daryl says, his voice low so that none of the other passersby will hear but still firm, authoritative. “I did not get him with child in a _carriage_. And frankly, even if I had, we’ll be married in eight days. No one would ever have to know.”

Abraham’s moustache seems to give this argument serious thought, and after a few seconds his muscles relax slightly under Rick’s hand. “Very well. We shall see you inside, Lord Dixon.”

//

“Mr. Grimes?”

Rick blinks and tears his eyes away from how Daryl moves as he dances a quadrille alongside Lord Margaret Greene. The steps are not as smooth and effortless as usual because the duke and the earl seem to be unconsciously competing for who will dance the dominant part, but still, Rick can hardly keep his eyes off his betrothed and even the slight awkwardness of the steps do nothing to change his conviction that Lord Daryl Dixon is the best dancer in the room.

But now he’s obligated to pretend that anything in the room matters besides Daryl, so he sighs softly and pastes a polite smile on his face as he looks back over at Mr. Jenner--his cousin, Edwin. “I do apologize,” he says. “I was woolgathering. What was the question?”

Cousin Edwin shakes his head, smoothing a hand over his green silk waistcoat. “Lord Harrison asked if you planned to stay in London after your marriage.”

“Oh,” Rick says, brightening at the idea that if he can’t ignore everyone to watch Daryl dance, he can at least _talk_ about Daryl. “His Grace wants to take me to Ashthorpe Manor for a few weeks. Then we may return to London for the remainder of the Season.” He pauses, tilts his head slightly. “But we may rusticate for a while, depending on how well Warwickshire agrees with me.”

Mr. Jenner smiles, his eyes twinkling in the low lighting of the ballroom. “Judging by how the duke looks at you, I’d wager it will agree with you _very_ well indeed.”

Rick smiles, a genuine one this time, and looks back out at Daryl. “He looks at me a certain way?”

“Oh, certainly,” Lord Harrison says. She takes a sip of her champagne and then motions at Daryl with her glass. “See? He looks at you like there’s no one else in the room worth noticing. It’s really very annoying, to be ignored so thoroughly.”

“He isn’t ignoring you,” Rick insists even as he blushes slightly under the duke’s regard. “He is simply acting as a betrothed man is expected to.”

Daryl catches Rick’s eye again at the end of a circuit and smiles, and Rick feels his eyes go starry as he smiles back. Cousin Edwin huffs out a frustrated sigh and then there’s a rustling sound, and Rick looks back at him just in time to see him slap five gold sovereigns into Lord Harrison’s hand.

“Never doubt me,” Lord Harrison says, slipping the coins into her reticule as her lips purse into a smug smile.

“Oh,” Rick says, blinking. “Was there a wager?”

Mr. Jenner rolls his eyes and crosses his arms with another huff, and Lord Harrison laughs merrily. “Mr. Jenner was under the impression that your marriage to the duke was not a love match. I thank you, Mr. Grimes, for proving him wrong.”

Rick blinks again, chancing another glance out into the ballroom. Daryl isn’t looking at him this time, instead locking his gaze on Merle, who’s dancing with Lord Porter and seeming entirely too pleased with himself, especially given that his dance steps are very ill indeed and Rick doubts he’s ever even been in the same room with a dancing master, much less taken lessons from one. “We’re not a love match,” he murmurs. “We’ve become… fond of each other. But it’s not a love match.”

Mr. Jenner holds out his hand. “I’d like my sovereigns back, if you please.”

“I do not please,” Lord Harrison says, holding her reticule farther away from Mr. Jenner. “It is _clearly_ a love match.”

“But Mr. Grimes just said it was not,” Mr. Jenner points out. He holds out his hand, palm-up, waiting for the return of his sovereigns.

Lord Harrison rolls her eyes and motions out at the dance floor. “Mr. Grimes may say whatever he likes, but that does not make it _true_. The proof is in the ridiculous doe eyes they are giving each other across the ballroom.”

Rick opens his mouth to respond but finds that he has neither the words nor the desire to disagree with the elegant blonde lord. The music of the current dance begins to slow and reach its conclusion, and so Rick smiles at his two companions. “The next is the waltz, is it not?” he asks, trying to keep his voice from betraying his enthusiasm.

“It is,” Lord Harrison answers. “And I must go find Mr. Mamet and make sure that he has no intention of weaseling out of it with my sister.” She bows politely and then lifts her skirts, swishing away from them in a determined path toward a very nervous-looking Mr. Mamet.

Cousin Edwin sighs and claps Rick on the shoulder. “Even though you lost me a bet, Cousin, I am happy that you’ve found love.”

“It’s not--” Rick starts, but Daryl’s fingers brush against the small of his back for just the barest instant before the duke steps up beside him.

“I believe this is my dance,” Daryl says, holding out his hand for Rick. He nods at Cousin Edwin politely, then closes his fingers around Rick’s and draws him slowly toward the open dancing area.

Rick fights to slow his hammering pulse, feeling flames licking at his insides from just the way Daryl’s fingers feel through their gloves. And oh heavens, those same fingers had been _inside_ Rick not a full hour before, and his knees still feel somewhat weak from the force of the release Daryl had shown him in the carriage. “You must help me,” Rick murmurs to the duke as they take their positions among the other dancers.

“Help you with what, dearling?” Daryl asks, quietly, his cobalt eyes locking with Rick’s and glimmering in the lamplight.

“I’m afraid I’m not as steady on my feet as I was an hour ago,” Rick says. He fights off a wicked little smile and ducks his head, hoping that no one within hearing distance will know what he means by that.

Daryl clearly does, though--his pupils blow wide and his hand tightens in Rick’s grasp as he pulls Rick in toward him. The music starts, and Daryl sweeps Rick into the dance steps, holding him a little too closely to be _perfectly_ proper but not quite closely enough to constitute more than the barest whiff of scandal, and Rick sighs happily as the room constricts and fades in at the edges until it is only the two of them, love blooming in the middle of an empty ballroom.

They float through the steps, twirling around the room without losing eye contact, Daryl steering them around with the other couples using only his peripheral vision and Rick is sure that he would not be able to look away even if someone pressed a pistol to his head. Even the music is irrelevant, meaningless, because Daryl is leading and Rick’s body and heart follow along instinctively with him, synchronized and effortless as it had never been with any other dance partner.

And even when Daryl breaks the eye contact, letting his gaze slip down from Rick’s eyes to his lips, it’s still magical, the connection even more intense than before even though Rick would not have thought it possible. Rick takes a chance and lets the tip of his tongue run along his own bottom lip, and Daryl lets out a shuddering breath.

“Rick,” he says, softly, his eyes still anchored to Rick’s mouth. The duke’s hand tightens on Rick’s waist and the narrow space between their bodies ticks upward in temperature. “I have to kiss you,” Daryl murmurs. “I do not believe I have a choice anymore--I _need_ to kiss you. Now.”

Rick lets his eyes flutter shut for just a moment as he breathes out a delicate, trembling sigh, then he re-opens them to find that Daryl is looking into them again, embers swirling upward from a blaze. “Then do so,” Rick says softly. “I have promised the next dance to Miss Williams, but I am not engaged for the next. Meet me in Lord Chambler’s study at the end of the next set.” Rick smiles and squeezes the duke’s shoulder. “Third door down from the south entrance to the ballroom.”

Daryl blinks and falters in the steps, but Rick senses the mistake coming and corrects them before either of them stumble. “I…” Daryl blinks again and looks around, seeming to register the rest of the ballroom for the first time since they took their places for the waltz. “Rick, I do not know if I can… be a gentleman. If we are alone again tonight.”

“I do not mean for you to be,” Rick murmurs. “I mean for you to take me. Make love to me. All the things you’ve said you wish to do to me, I want you to do.”

“In Lord Chambler’s study,” Daryl says, his voice strangely weak and incredulous. “You wish to lose your virginity in Lord Chambler’s study.”

Rick laughs, with equal parts merriment and equal parts nervous hysterics. “I rather thought I lost it an hour ago in your carriage.”

Daryl sputters but doesn’t miss the dance steps this time. “Rick, that wasn’t--”

“I know,” Rick interrupts, still quiet so that none of the other dancers will hear. “I know there’s more. And I am sick to death of waiting for it.”

Daryl watches Rick’s eyes for several seconds, then nods quickly, just a jerk of his head. “After the next set,” he says, and then the music winds to a flourishing halt and they stop moving, Daryl’s hand still on Rick’s waist for a moment. “Rick…”

“I’m sure,” Rick says, smiling softly. “I’m _so_ certain, Daryl.”

This time, Daryl forgets to kiss Rick’s gloved knuckles, opting instead to just blink at him with his lips slightly parted. Rick curtseys and lets himself melt away into the crowd, looking over his shoulder once as he walks away to see the duke still standing in place, staring after him with a tiny smile playing at the corners of his lips.


	15. A Vexing Demand

Rick finishes his dance with Sasha and hands her off to her next partner, the same vicar who’s been making a point to dance with her on several occasions lately, then makes a beeline for the hallway. He makes it to Lord Chambler’s study without incident, and he barely has time to take stock of the layout of the room--much like Daryl’s study but on a smaller scale, with a desk and a sofa--before the duke himself breezes in the doorway and takes Rick in his arms.

Rick sighs in contentment and lets Daryl’s arms settle around his waist, slides his own arms around Daryl’s neck, and for a moment they just hold each other, Daryl’s eyes glittering black in the dark room as he searches Rick’s face for something Rick can’t quite identify.

“The things you do to me, Rick,” Daryl murmurs, then leans in and kisses him, hard and hungry and breathless, and Rick sags into him happily, returning the kiss with great enthusiasm. Daryl splays his hands out on Rick’s back, digging his fingertips in slightly and pulling Rick tighter against him, and Rick pushes his own hips forward, pressing their lengths together through what suddenly seems like altogether too many layers of clothing.

He tugs on Daryl’s lapels and pulls him over to the sofa, then pushes the duke down on it and smiles at Daryl’s slack-jawed expression of wonder as he throws his leg over to straddle the duke’s waist as he had in the carriage. Rick throws his arms around Daryl’s neck and tilts his head down to kiss him again. “Tell me what you _want_ me to do to you,” he whispers. “I want to learn how to please you as you have pleased me.”

Daryl laughs breathlessly at that. “My god, Rick,” he says, reaching up and tucking a loose curl behind Rick’s ear. “You please me just by entering the room.”

Rick smiles, eyes sparkling with joy, and Daryl smiles back, thoughts of lust and desperation gone for just that moment as they gaze into each others’ eyes. “Daryl,” Rick says softly, his heart threatening to burst at the seams, “I think I--”

“I want to take you,” Daryl interrupts, his voice dark and sensual like how Rick imagines the forest at night. “Make you mine. I cannot wait eight more days.”

Rick lets out a breathy sigh that trembles as it slips out of his lungs. “Yes,” he says, simply. “Make me yours.”

Daryl grabs Rick’s hips and twists them, lying back against the sofa with Rick straddling him. “You deserve better than this,” he murmurs even as he puts a hand on the back of Rick’s head to pull him down for a kiss. “You deserve silk sheets and rose petals and all the time in the world, not just a quick fuck in a study. But if this is what you want--”

“It _is_.”

“--then I don’t have the strength to refuse you,” Daryl finishes. He brushes their lips together and whispers against Rick’s mouth. “You’re mine already. Only mine.”

Rick whimpers, his veins catching fire at the weight behind Daryl’s words, then shifts his position slightly and rolls his hips down to press his already-aching cock against Daryl’s. Daryl gasps and digs his fingers into Rick’s waist, pulling them together with even more pressure, and Rick smiles and reaches down to begin working on the fastenings of Daryl’s breeches.

“Wait,” Daryl breathes, and Rick pauses and gives him a questioning look.

“Promise me I’m the only one who will ever do this to you,” Daryl murmurs, reaching up to brush his fingers over Rick’s cheek. “I won’t share you. There will be no one else. Promise me.”

“I swear it,” Rick whispers, closing his eyes and leaning farther down so that his cheek presses into Daryl’s hand.

Daryl brushes his lips over Rick’s exposed throat, just above the line of his cravat. “I know society overlooks discreet affairs after you’ve produced an heir. I will not.” He bites down gently on Rick’s neck and then runs his lips up to Rick’s jawline. “You’re to be mine, and only mine. Swear it to me.”

Rick moans and rolls his hips down to press his cock against the bulge in Daryl’s own breeches. “I swear it,” he says again, his breath ragged as the duke’s teeth drag over his skin.

“No affairs, and no bastard children,” Daryl growls against Rick’s throat, and this time his voice is harder, less lust-filled and more--final. Businesslike. Rick slows his grinding movements and frowns, his brow knitting as he listens to the demands Daryl is making. “I will not tolerate it.”

“All of my children will be yours,” Rick offers, still frowning, not quite sure why he even has to say this at all. It’s a given, like _all cats were once kittens_ and _all snow is cold_ , something so ridiculously obvious that it boggles Rick’s mind to even entertain the notion that it might not be true.

Daryl, for his part, pushes Rick slightly away so that he can lock eyes with him. “They damn well better be,” he growls. “I’m not raising someone else’s children.”

Rick bristles at that, the fire in his veins shifting tones from lust to anger at the suggestion that he would be anything less than fully devoted to his husband. “Daryl, I--”

“I will _not_ r--”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Rick snaps, and Daryl blinks and falls silent. Rick sits up, still straddling the duke, but his posture is ramrod straight now in a way that would have made his etiquette master weep with joy. He glares down at Daryl, eyebrow raised in a silent challenge.

“My apologies,” the duke says, his voice frosty like a winter morning. “Do continue.”

Rick lifts his nose slightly and gives Daryl the same ‘regal duchess’ voice that he’d used on the butler. “I am offended that you would doubt me on such an important issue. When we marry, I will make promises to you before God and before our families, and I have no intention of breaking those promises.”

Daryl scoffs and looks away. “Yes, and I’m sure that many men before us have had the same intentions when the priest stares down his pointy nose at us.”

Rick lurches to his feet, jaw tight and finger ready for pointing. “Now see here--”

“Did it occur to you that you are just as much at risk in this as I am?” Daryl bites out, and Rick blinks. “Maybe you’ll stay faithful. Maybe it was unfair of me to suggest that you might not. But what if _I_ don’t? What if I see some groundskeeper with a pretty face and I can’t help myself? What if I attend a play and bring Julius Caesar home with me? What if you wake up one morning hearing a baby cry and it’s my illegitimate child with a stableboy?”

Rick grinds his teeth and glares at Daryl. “Do you think that’s likely to happen?”

“No, I don’t,” Daryl grumbles. He pushes himself up to a sitting position and leans forward, putting his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands. “I’m simply pointing out that everyone enters marriage with good intentions. And then one day a mail coach arrives with a bastard son and they take him and install him in the nursery.”

Clearing his throat delicately, Rick straightens his spine and squares his shoulders. “You would not do such a thing to me,” he says, infusing his tone with marble and steel, “and I would most certainly not do such a thing to _you_. I give you my word that I will be faithful to you. And…” He stops, gathers his courage. “And I demand your word in return.”

Daryl looks up at him with dull eyes, and the seconds of utter silence crawl by, slower than the stars spinning above them outside the window to the study. “I cannot make such promises,” he says at last.

“Daryl--”

“No,” Daryl says, putting his head back in his hands. “I cannot. Rick, I’m sorry for whatever I have done that has led you to believe that I’m a decent man, that I can love you, that I will be faithful to you. My father was unfaithful, my grandfather too. His mother before him. There’s a long tradition of infidelity and broken promises in my family and I’m no better than the dukes who have come before me. And I will not make promises to you that I am not capable of keeping.”

Rick smoothes his tailcoat and presses out the wrinkles with his palms, mostly to have something to do with his hands other than wrap them around the duke’s neck and squeeze. “And yet you expect those same promises of me.”

Daryl sighs and sits up straighter, dropping his own hands and looking away from Rick, into the dark corners of the room. “I don’t think it unreasonable to ask that you not reproduce with your paramours.”

Rick’s mouth falls open. “My _paramours_ ,” he repeats, breathy with rage. “I just swore to you, more than once, that you would be the only one I would ever allow in my bed. Are you accusing me of lying to you, Lord Dixon?”

“No,” Daryl says. He shakes his head, quickly at first and then gradually more slowly until the motion fades away. “I believe that you are sincere now, in this moment. But the future may change us both in ways we can’t predict.”

Rick squeezes his eyes shut and concentrates on his breathing--in, out, in, out. His pulse rushes in his veins, like it had in the carriage only angrier, colder, with no trace of the hope that had flooded him before. “You are not your father,” he says after several more long moments. “You are not your grandfather, or his mother, or any of the lords in your ancestry. You are Daryl, my betrothed, and you would never hurt me.”

Daryl doesn’t say anything for a long time, and when he finally speaks, the words are flat, dull. “Blood will tell in the end.”

The room is dark and suddenly feels cold, tomb-like, and Rick wants nothing more than to run from it. He takes in a ragged breath. “So you plan to be unfaithful to me.”

“I do not _plan_ to,” Daryl says quietly. “But it will happen. And I would much rather hurt you now, before your affection grows any more, than hurt you later when you’re attached to me.”

Rick sets his jaw and waits for another moment, hoping that Daryl will see how ridiculous his words are and apologize, but the duke just continues to sit on the sofa and stare off into a corner of the room. “Very well,” Rick says. “I must be going, Your Grace.”

“Rick--”

“Mr. Grimes,” Rick corrects, congratulating himself on keeping his voice steady and unwavering even as his heart breaks in his chest. “As this is a marriage of convenience only, I see no reason for you to continue using my Christian name, _Lord Dixon_.” He drops the shallowest curtsy he can manage and strides out the door and down the hallway back to the ballroom.

Abraham is standing with Lord Chambler and Tara, and Rick schools his face into a passive mask and strides over to them. “Ah, Richard,” Abraham says when he approaches the group. “Wondered where you’d got off to.”

“I wish to go home, Father,” Rick says, carefully not meeting Abraham’s eyes. He turns to Tara’s father, still averting his gaze away from anyone else’s. “Forgive me, Lord Chambler. The ball has been lovely but I’m afraid I’m not feeling well.”

Abraham watches Rick for a moment, then nods. “Yes, of course. I’ll have the carriage brought around.” He bows to Lord Chambler, then heads off to summon the driver.

Lord Chambler mumbles his well-wishes and then wanders off, and Tara puts her hand on Rick’s arm and gives him a worried look. “Would you like me to let the duke know you’ve gone home? What should I tell him?”

Rick snorts with humorless laughter. “Whatever you fancy telling him, I suppose. I expect he won’t be surprised.” He pats Tara’s hand on his arm and then draws back and bows. “Good night, Miss Chambler,” he says, then leaves the ballroom to wait for his carriage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me! But hey, at least he didn't lose his virginity in someone else's office!


	16. A Doleful Decision

Rick doesn’t speak much on the ride home, and Abraham doesn’t push him, instead seeming to accept Rick’s plea of a headache, and as soon as they arrive at their house Rick rushes upstairs and changes into his nightshirt and cap and then crawls into bed. He stares out the window for hours, watching the tree outside bend in the wind, listening to the soft calling of a nightingale and then the far-off hooting of an owl, and he very determinedly thinks about his future.

It doesn’t take him long at all to decide that Daryl was lying to him, that all that nonsense about blood telling and the duke’s inability to love is just that: nonsense. Utter, complete nonsense. Because it’s obvious to Rick that Daryl is in love with him too, as much as he tries to deny it. So he dismisses those arguments, lets them fade away into the night air and waft up into the stars. He loves Daryl, and Daryl loves him back. No amount of hurtful, grandstanding speeches from the duke will convince Rick otherwise.

But feelings are one thing, and actions are quite another. And if Daryl refuses to _act_ as if he’s in love…

Rick sighs and pulls his blankets tighter around him, thinking of Christmases at Ashthorpe again, only this time he’s alone in front of the fireplace, heavily pregnant and trying to explain to his children why their father is out gallivanting at the local pub instead of on the rug with them, playing with the puppy and smiling up at Rick. Trying to resign himself to another snowy night when he goes to bed alone in his own chambers while another man sleeps next to his husband in the adjoining room. Trying to justify all the little illegitimate children running around Bettsville with Daryl’s eyes, Daryl’s smile. All because Daryl believes so strongly in the futility of love that he won’t let himself be happy, that he will want to _prove_ to Rick that he was right and that love matches destroy happiness.

And he thinks about their children. Little Carl, who would inherit the dukedom one day. Perhaps a daughter or two--Judith, maybe, or Ruth. The gaggle of children ( _several_ , the duke had said) who would grow up cynical, unhappy, with parents who were miserable and could never connect. And then Carl courting someone one day, telling them the same thing as Daryl had, that his parents had loved too much and it had killed all the joy in both their eyes when it inevitably burned out. On and on into the future, a cycle that would never break, and Rick’s heart hurts, it _hurts_. To think of watching his babies grow up like that, having that view of the world and of love and family.

He knows what he needs to do, but he circles the issue, refusing to land on it and settle. And the night crawls on into sunrise and beyond.

//

Morning visiting hours arrive, and Rick drags himself out of bed and lets Mr. Walsh help him into suitable visiting attire. Abraham is already in the drawing room when Rick enters, and he immediately crosses the room to stand close in front of Rick.

“You look like death,” Abraham says, reaching up to press the back of his hand against Rick’s forehead. “Are you ill?”

“No, Father. Just… overtired.” Rick stands still while Abraham finishes his test of temperature, then gently pushes Abraham’s hand away and crosses over to the sofa to sits down on it, both sad and relieved that his body doesn’t twinge at the impact after last night in the carriage.

Abraham’s moustache wiggles and seems unconvinced, but Abraham himself just nods and rings Mrs. Monroe for a cup of chocolate and biscuits for each of them. The clock in the corner strikes the hour, and immediately Basset walks into the room.

“His Grace the Duke of Bettsville is here, Col. Grimes. Mr. Grimes. Shall I show him in?”

Abraham nods at the butler. “Yes, of cour--”

“No,” Rick interrupts, softly at first and then louder, more firmly. “No. We are not at home.”

The silence in the room is thunderous as both Abraham and Basset stare at Rick, who in turn stares at his hands and wills them not to shake.

“You are not at home… to visitors?” Basset asks, politely but with a clear film of confusion draped over his words.

“We are at home to visitors,” Rick clarifies, then takes a deep breath before speaking again. “We are not at home to _Lord Dixon_.”

Basset blinks several times, then clears his throat. “Mr. Grimes--”

“We are not at home,” Abraham interjects. “Thank you, Basset. Please give the duke our regrets.”

The butler bows and leaves the room, and Rick raises his hand and presses it against his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut and trying hard to hold in whatever sound his body is trying to make--a sob of despair, a scream of anguish, a bellow of rage, or perhaps some combination of all three, twisted up like vines in his lungs. After a moment, he feels the sofa shift as Abraham sits down beside him.

“I won’t make you talk about it,” the older man says, low and quiet and strangely intense. “But I must know _this_. Did he force himself on you?”

Rick’s eyes fly open at that and he looks up at Abraham, brows furrowed. “No,” he says quickly. “No, of course not. He would never.”

Abraham’s face goes pale with relief and he puts an arm around Rick, holds him tightly. “But he hurt you.”

Rick leans against Abraham and lets out a shuddering sigh. “His words hurt me. Not his hands.”

“Good,” Abraham mutters. “Because if he’d laid a hand on you, I would have to avenge your honor, and I don’t have a great desire to go to prison for putting a bullet in a duke’s head.”

Rick laughs at that, far more horrified than amused, but the surprise of the statement breaks the tension in his chest and he nods. “Thank you, Father. I just… I cannot see him today.”

“You don’t have to see him again until you’re ready, I promise you that.” Abraham leans over and quickly kisses Rick’s temple. “I love you, son.”

Rick nods, smiling sadly. “I know, Father.”

//

They see other visitors, and after a while Rick is smiling again, laughing with Carol and playing bridge with Glenn and Sasha and then playing a piano duet with Tara to amuse their fathers. The afternoon is spent in the garden with his watercolors, and Lords Porter and Espinosa join them for dinner, then it’s evening and Rick falls into bed, exhausted from his sleepless hours the night before. And then it’s morning again, and Daryl requests entry at the first moment of polite visiting hours but Rick again tells Basset that they are not at home.

Two more days slip by, and Rick’s thoughts keep swirling around the problem without much in the way of resolution.

Daryl loves him. But Daryl will not show it, will not allow that which is good to flourish because he is simply too frightened by the evil he sees within himself. Within his blood. And if he is that convinced, that _certain_ that he will hurt Rick in the end--well, he will. It’s almost a certainty. And Rick could face that for himself, could devote himself to showing Daryl that love can improve a marriage and not doom it. And even if he didn’t succeed, he would at least have tried. He could do that, if it was only him.

But it would not only be him. It would be Carl, too. And that thought is simply unacceptable.

//

Abraham is in his study late on the third night, deeply engrossed in whatever papers are in front of him, when Rick silently pads in with a candle. “Richard,” he says, sitting up straighter and peering at his son. “I thought you had gone to bed.”

“I had,” Rick says quietly. “I could not sleep and I needed to…” He takes a deep breath, holding the candle-dish with both hands. “I needed to ask you something, Father. Something important.”

Abraham narrows his eyes slightly, tilting his head just a bit in thought. “Go on.”

When he speaks, it’s so small, so fragile that Rick has to step forward so that Abraham will be able to hear him. “Would we be ruined if… I did not marry the duke?”

“If you…” Abraham repeats, then stands up quickly, his chair skidding on the carpet and threatening to tip over. “What did he do to you?” he thunders, stepping around his desk and walking up closer to Rick. “What has he done? I will kill him if he--”

“He has done nothing,” Rick interrupts, still very softly. “But… he does not love me. He will not. And I love him so, Father. It will… he says it will destroy me and he is right. And I will not raise children in a household like that. Where he holds me at arm’s length to prove his point that he will not love me, even though it hurts us both. Where he lets other men into his bed because he will not admit he wants _me_ there.” He bites his lip, looks up at Abraham and speaks more firmly. “I do not wish to go through with the marriage. You said you would not force me if I did not wish to marry him, and I am asking you now. Please do not make me marry him.”

Abraham sighs heavily and looks away from Rick’s eyes, gazing at the rug on the floor like the patterns there hold the answers. At length, he speaks, his moustache unsettling in its utter stillness. “I must first ask a question and you must answer honestly, Rick.” Rick nods, and Abraham lifts his eyes to meet his son’s again, blue boring into blue heavily, like shovels in the dust. “Is there a chance that you could be with child?”

Rick shifts the candle-holder to one hand so that he can rub his mouth with the other. “No,” he says after a moment, forcing himself not to think of the duke’s fingers on him, _in_ him, the duke’s lips dragging over his skin. “No, I am not with child.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“Yes, I’m certain,” Rick says, breaking eye contact with Abraham and hoping that the dim light conceals his blush. “We have not done… that.”

There’s another long silence, and finally Abraham reaches up and rubs his own mouth, smoothing down the fiery hairs of his moustache and letting them spring back up into place. “Then I will not make you marry him. But I want to make sure you understand what this will mean before you decide. If you break this engagement, you might never marry, Richard. Too many people know of the liberties he took with you--at least that there _were_ liberties, if not the nature of them. So if you do not marry the duke, you may end an old bachelor. Is that something you can live with?”

Rick sighs, his lip quivering slightly as he speaks. “I cannot live with him if he cannot love me. Anything is better than that. Even loneliness.”

Abraham nods very slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. “And you’re certain that this is not just a lover’s quarrel, something that you can talk about and move past. Something he will change his mind about.”

Rick bites his lip to make it stop quivering, then shakes his head. “We have talked about it. I have tried these past weeks to make him see reason, and he will not.”

“And you don’t believe he will change his mind? You’ve only really known him for a month, Rick. Maybe he just needs time.”

Taking a deep, ragged breath, Rick shakes his head again. “I can’t take that chance, Father. I’m to marry him in three days and once I’m his duchess, there can be no going back. I’ve given him as much time as I have in my power to give.”

Abraham takes the candle from Rick and sets it down on his desk, then turns back and pulls Rick into a tight, crushing hug. “I’m so sorry, son.”

Rick tucks his face into his father’s chest as he had when he was a little boy, frightened of thunderstorms. “I love him, Father. But I can’t…”

He trails off, and Abraham kisses the top of his head, his moustache catching for just a moment in Rick’s curls. “I would never make you. I want you happy. And if that means we’re going to have to move to a seaside cottage in Cornwall and raise goats, then I’m gonna be the best damn goat-herder you’ve ever seen. You can count on that.”

Rick laughs a watery laugh and then extricates himself from Abraham’s arms. “Thank you, Father.”

Abraham nods and grunts out a response, then eyes Rick carefully. “Do you want me to call on him and explain?”

“No.” Rick takes a deep breath and stands up a little straighter. “No, I will tell him myself. Tomorrow.”


	17. A Regretful Release

The next morning, Rick wakes earlier than usual to give Shane time to make him look especially fashionable, with perfectly fitted pantaloons and a lovely blue silk waistcoat and a cravat that he lets Mr. Walsh spend nearly an hour folding and ironing and tying into a much more intricate knot than he’d bothered with since the first time Daryl had ruined all of the valet’s hard work. He eats breakfast from a tray that Mrs. Monroe brought up to his room, then steels himself and heads downstairs, entering the drawing room as Abraham and Basset are discussing the plans for the day.

“Basset,” Rick announces, holding his back ramrod straight as the butler turns to bow to him. “We are at home to visitors this morning.” He pauses, catching Basset’s eye to ensure that he is listening. “ _All_ visitors.”

“Yes, Mr. Grimes,” Basset says, then bows again and leaves the room to take up his post at the door.

Abraham turns to look at Rick. “Are you certain that this is what you want? I will stand behind you no matter what you decide, but...” He shrugs, folds his arms across his chest. “I just want to be sure.”

Rick crosses over to his favorite spot on the sofa and sits down, perching primly on the edge of the seat. “Yes, Father. I’m quite certain.”

Abraham nods, and before he has the chance to sit in his own favorite armchair, Basset re-enters the room. “His Grace Daryl Dixon, Duke of Bettsville,” he intones. “And Mr. Merle Dixon.”

And then Daryl is in the room, his eyes filled with raw, unfiltered relief, and Rick stands slowly and looks down at the carpet as the duke crosses the room, a bouquet of rather exotic-looking flowers dangling from his hand. “Rick,” Daryl says quietly, stepping up close to him and ducking his head to try and meet Rick’s eyes.

“Mr. Dixon,” Abraham booms, extending his arm for Merle to take. “Would you join me for a stroll in the garden?”

Merle frowns, looking between Abraham and Rick. “I don’t think--”

“Merle,” Daryl snaps. “Just bloody well _go_.”

Merle’s frown deepens and he lets out a frustrated huff, but he takes Abraham’s arm and the two of them exit the room with a swish of their tailcoats. The door shuts with a heavy click--the first time Rick and Daryl have ever been alone in this room with the door actually _shut_ \--and there’s a deep, bone-chilling silence for a few endless seconds.

“Rick,” Daryl says after a moment. “I--”

“Don’t,” Rick interrupts softly. “I… have things to say.”

Daryl’s lips flatten into a thin line, but he nods. “Yes, of course. Do go ahead.”

“I cannot do this anymore,” Rick says, speaking very quietly but with an edge of steel to his voice. “I cannot… have you want me so much one moment and push me away the next. I cannot take wondering if you will change, if you will love me one day if I just keep trying.”

“I’ve been honest with you from the beginning,” Daryl responds. The flowers rustle at his side and he takes a deep breath. “I will be a good husband to you--”

“But will you love me?” Rick asks. He finally lifts his eyes to meet Daryl’s. “Is there a hope that one day you will? I need to know the answer to that question. No rationales. No persuasions. Just an answer. Yes or no.”

Daryl lets out a small, broken sigh. “I cannot allow myself to love you. I wish I could, Rick. You have no notion of how much I wish that. But I cannot.”

Rick bites his lip but does not break eye contact with Daryl. The words he knows he must say burn and die behind his lips, his gut clenching and his lungs refusing to take in the oxygen he needs. Daryl’s eyes speak volumes that the duke’s own mouth won’t say, things that Rick isn’t sure there are words for anyway, and Rick drinks in the sight of him, attempts to etch it into his mind for when the nights in Cornwall get especially lonely.

Daryl seems to sense Rick’s hesitation and he steps forward again, puts his free hand on Rick’s cheek. “But I will be so good to you, Richard.” He leans in and presses his forehead against Rick’s, closes his eyes. “You will want for nothing. _Queens_ will wish to have the things I will give you, the life I’ll make sure you have.” He pauses, tosses the flowers off to the side and puts his other hand on Rick’s other cheek, cradling Rick’s face in his hands. “I should not have said those things the other night. I would never flaunt my misters in front of you. I would not cause you that pain. And I will swear to you that all of my children will be yours too. No bastards for you to have to tolerate. I swear that to you.”

Rick takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes shut. “But you will not love me,” he murmurs, then opens his eyes and lets them lock with Daryl’s again, lets his heart flow up through his irises, lets the love he has for Daryl shine through them so that the duke can have no doubts about his feelings. “Kiss me.”

“Thank God,” Daryl mutters, then swoops forward and claims Rick’s lips with his own.

Rick sighs into Daryl’s mouth and loops his arms around the duke’s shoulders at the same time that Daryl pulls him in closer, their bodies pressed together from their chests all the way down to their hips, and Rick can feel Daryl already stirring against him, already taking notice of the proximity. Rick’s own body floods with heat, his trembling hands slipping into Daryl’s hair, and he opens his mouth to let Daryl’s tongue inside at the same time that he relaxes in the duke’s arms, lets Daryl take the lead.

And by now Daryl knows Rick’s body, knows the curve of his neck under the cravat and the slope of his hipbones, knows the corners of his mouth and the weight of his tongue, and he’s using that knowledge like a weapon, touching Rick so flawlessly, pushing and pressing and licking at all the right spots to make Rick melt, to remind Rick that the duke’s body against him feels more like home than this house ever has.

So Rick lets Daryl kiss him, lets his mind wander through every kiss they’ve shared, every time the duke’s hands have touched his skin. He thinks of the carriage, of how much pleasure Daryl had given him there. Of how Daryl had held him while he caught his breath, kissed him so gently, wanted him so much. He thinks of the night in Daryl’s study, the duke’s tongue whiskey-flavored and wicked, the duke’s weight pressing down on him on the sofa. And more than that, he thinks of Daryl’s eyes in the sunlight, the way the man always stares out the window like the forest past the city is calling to his soul, the way that Daryl had promised to make love to him in that very forest.

He sighs again and sears the moment into his memory, this last touch of lips to lips, and when he pulls back and leans their foreheads together again, his cheeks are wet like the morning mist and the breath he takes in has a shudder to it that he can’t control.

“Rick,” Daryl says again, breathes the word out like the wind over the moors, soft and gentle.

“I release you from our engagement,” Rick whispers, then leaves his head bowed even as Daryl takes a step backward in surprise.

“I beg your pardon?” Daryl says, his voice gruff and cracked.

Rick slowly opens his eyes and looks up at Daryl. He fists his own tailcoat in his hands and grips it tightly as if the fabric will anchor him somehow. “After a great deal of thought,” he says, speaking with a deliberate cadence that he hopes will make it easier to say the words, “I regret that I am unable to accept your hand in marriage. Therefore I release you from our engagement.” He takes a deep breath, continues. “My father will, of course, forfeit my dowry and it will remain with you.”

“To _hell_ with your dowry,” Daryl bites out. “What are you saying, Rick?”

Rick watches him for a moment, then holds out a hand for a handshake. “I bear you no ill will, and I hope you feel the same. You are a free man now, Your Grace.”

Daryl’s eyes widen for a moment, then narrow again. He does not shake Rick’s hand. “You’re being ridiculous. You… we will be happy together. I want you as my duchess.”

“I am in love with you,” Rick says, feeling equal parts powerful and unfair at the thunderstruck look in Daryl’s eyes as he speaks the words, “and therefore I am not the duchess you want. I never could be. Not if you do not return the sentiment. And… you are right. If I married you now, loving you like I do while you do not love _me_ , it would destroy us both.” He takes another deep breath, repeats himself a third time. “And therefore I release you from our engagement.”

Daryl reaches for Rick, only to drop his hand as Rick flinches away from the touch. “I do not want to be released.”

Rick squares his shoulders and forces himself to stand up straighter. “It is no longer your decision. I have broken the terms of our engagement by developing feelings for you and therefore our agreement is terminated.” He crosses to the servants’ bell and rings for Basset.

“Rick--”

“Show Lord Dixon out,” Rick says to the butler, then turns toward Daryl again and drops into a respectful, polite curtsy. “Thank you for calling on me, Your Grace.”

“Rick, this is--”

“Just go,” Rick murmurs, blinking rapidly and looking off to the side, toward the window that will always contain the ghost of the duke staring out through its panes. “Just… go.”

Daryl’s mouth sets into a hard line again, but he bows with a stiffness that Rick has never seen in any of the duke’s movements and then turns toward the door and stalks toward it. He reaches the doorway and pauses, his hand on the doorframe. Time slows for a moment, Daryl drawing a breath to speak and Rick’s shoulders tensing in dreadful anticipation, and then the moment is over and Daryl’s hand drops away from the door, his whole body sagging like the weight of the world has fallen on it.

Basset leads him out into the hallway, and the footfalls of the duke as he walks toward the front door are the beats of Rick’s heart, slow and resonant, mournful and heavy. The door closes behind him, and Rick sits heavily down on the sofa and bites viciously on his lip to keep the tears from falling.


	18. A Distressing Encounter

After Daryl leaves, Rick and Abraham decide that they’ve had quite enough visitors for the day, so after a brief discussion with Basset it’s back to watercolors in the garden while Abraham attempts to read a book about the history of opera. The morning drones on mostly peacefully as Rick throws himself into getting the exact patterns of the sunlight through the trees down on the canvas and Abraham doesn’t ask him to say anything. There’s much to be said for the quiet and the fresh air, and Rick does his best not to think about Daryl, about the future they might have had together that’s gone forever now.

But eventually the sky clouds over and threatens rain, and Rick and his father adjourn back to the drawing room. After a while, Basset enters the room and bows at them. “Col. Grimes, Mr. Grimes. I know you instructed me that you were not at home to visitors, but Miss Horvath and Mr. Rhee are requesting an audience, and I thought you might wish to make an exception for them as they are Mr. Grimes’s particular friends?”

Abraham shoots a questioning glance at Rick, who nods slowly. “Yes,” Abraham says, sitting up straighter in his chair. “Send them in. And have Mrs. Monroe send in tea and biscuits.”

Basset bows again and disappears, then returns a few seconds later with Carol and Glenn at his heels. Rick takes a deep breath to explain things to them, to tell them about his decision and what that likely means for their friendship, but then he sees the look of feverish joy on Carol’s face and the red flush of embarrassment on Glenn’s, and he pastes the brightest smile he can manage on his face and reaches out to clutch their hands in friendship.

“Rick,” Carol practically crows, “you will never believe what has happened!”

“Then you must tell me at once,” Rick says, looking over at Glenn and raising an eyebrow at the other man’s extreme bashfulness.

“Glenn has received an offer of marriage from Lord Greene,” Carol says, grasping at Rick’s hand again and squeezing it tightly. “He’s to be _Lady Greene_. Next month!”

Rick feels his throat constrict and his stomach fill with cold lead. “Is that so?” he hears himself say, and he tries to increase the brightness of his smile and hopes that it doesn’t morph into a nightmarish mask due to his lack of control over the expression.

In any case, Glenn doesn’t seem to be horrified by whatever emotion is on Rick’s face. He blushes harder and nods. “She’s to announce it at her ball tonight.”

“You will be there, won’t you, Rick?” Carol chirps, leaning over to kiss Glenn’s cheek. “Glenn was worried that you might have a headache again.”

Rick bites back a sigh and instead nods. “Of course I will be there,” he says, ignoring the slight rise of panic in his stomach at the thought of seeing Daryl across a ballroom, at the thought of watching him begin to woo his next duchess. His body gives an involuntary shudder, and he forces another smile to cover the motion. “My apologies. I felt a draft.”

“Thank you, Rick,” Glenn says, his dark eyes wide and intense. “I’m very nervous and I... would feel much better if all my friends were in attendance.”

Rick keeps smiling even as he fights to keep his eyes from glazing over. “Yes. Of course. I will certainly be there tonight.”

//

A man about Daryl’s height walks through the door of the ballroom and Rick’s head whips up, a now-familiar rush of dread washing over him before he recognizes the man as Lord Aaron Raleigh and not the Duke of Bettsville. Rick sighs and forces himself to relax. He just needs to make it through Glenn’s engagement announcement and then he can come down with a blistering headache and need to be taken home early again. He’s already exhausted, going through the motions of polite society, talking to everyone about meaningless trivial matters and dancing only when he can’t gracefully refuse or when Glenn’s slow-bubbling happiness gets to be too much to bear.

Daryl never appears, which is a relief to Rick but a mildly scandalous surprise to everyone else--the Duke of Bettsville neglecting to attend the ball after initially accepting the invitation, the fact that he had apparently not even sent his apologies to Lord Greene and had instead simply… stayed away. Rick mostly sidesteps the inevitable questions about the duke’s whereabouts, offering a vague explanation that Daryl must have been feeling ill or else he would certainly not have missed the earl’s ball.

It’s after one such question that Carol shows up at Rick’s side with a glass of lemonade, which she hands to Rick with a smile on her lips but worry in her eyes. “Are you quite alright, Rick? You look overtired.”

Rick takes the glass and swirls the lemonade for a moment, watching the way the liquid catches the candlelight. “I’m very well, thank you,” he murmurs. He glances up and surveys the room, seeing Glenn on Lord Greene’s arm, gazing happily up into the earl’s lovely green eyes, the dark wine color of Glenn’s waistcoat a perfect complement to Lord Greene’s midnight-blue silk dress.

“Ah, I see,” Carol says after following Rick’s gaze. She leans in conspiratorially. “You are experiencing nerves because of how close your wedding is. Four days, is it not?”

Rick closes his eyes for a moment, then avoids the question briefly while he takes a long sip of his lemonade. “It isn’t that. I’m just… yes. Overtired. That’s it exactly.”

Carol raises an eyebrow and opens her mouth to respond, but whatever she had intended to say is interrupted by a jovial clap on Rick’s shoulder from behind him. He winces slightly and turns to see the slightly sinister smile on the face of Sir Gareth Lancaster.

“Mr. Grimes, fancy seeing you here,” Sir Gareth says. “I would have thought you would be at home tonight.”

Rick flicks his eyes to Sir Gareth’s and then back down to his lemonade. “I have it on good authority that there is to be a happy announcement tonight that involves one of my dear friends. I would not miss it for the world.”

“That’s very good of you considering your own circumstances, isn’t it?” Sir Gareth asks, smirking with a very unsettling gleam in his eye.

Rick blinks and opens his mouth just a bit. Surely Sir Gareth doesn’t _know_. No one knows yet--that’s been clear from all the questions he’s been asked, all the references people have been making to a marriage that won’t ever happen. Surely--

“My sincere condolences,” Sir Gareth says, not looking sincere in the slightest, “on the end of your engagement. I must say, I never saw much of a future in such a match. Now perhaps you will be able to find a partner more suited to your station, yes?”

Carol lets out a tiny gasp--of indignation or shock, Rick isn’t sure, but certainly not a happy gasp. Rick grits his teeth together and speaks through them. “My engagement is not of any concern to you, Sir Gareth.”

“Oh, but it is.” Sir Gareth pats Rick on the shoulder again, and Rick manages not to flinch at the touch this time. “It means I’m the heir to a dukedom again. So I would venture to say that it is of _extreme_ concern to me.” He smiles again, even less friendly this time, and then raises a hand to someone across the ballroom. “I suppose it’s for the best that Dixon has left town. Much less embarrassing for your family, eh?”

Rick focuses on his breathing: in, out, in, out, and after a moment Sir Gareth’s smile widens. “Oh. Did you not know that he’s gone back to the country? My apologies. I saw the ducal carriages being loaded up with all the family belongings earlier today and the whole house was shut up when I drove by on the way to the ball. He’s probably halfway to Warwickshire now. I think it _very_ unlikely that he’ll return this Season, wouldn’t you agree, Miss Horvath?”

Carol smiles prettily at him, bright and false. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know the duke’s plans, Sir Gareth,” she says, and Rick clutches at her arm as surreptitiously as he can manage and clings to her as the room begins to constrict around him.

“Hmm, I imagine not. Your family doesn’t tend to move in such lofty circles.” Sir Gareth smiles again and looks at Rick. “I must be going now, but I do hope we’ll chat again soon? I know an attorney in Cheapside who you may wish to meet, Mr. Grimes--I hear he’s looking for a groom and won’t be too picky about where that groom has been. Ta-ta!”

As Sir Gareth walks away, Carol pulls her arm from Rick’s grip, then plucks the lemonade glass from Rick’s hand and shoves it at a passing footman before turning back to Rick. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whisper-hisses at him.

Rick smoothes his hands down his front, over his waistcoat and down to rest on his sides. He twists his fingers in the fabric there and stares at the wooden floor, trying desperately to keep his breathing regular, his vision from sparkling at the edges, his eyes from unfocusing and glassing over. Daryl is gone. Daryl is gone and now other people know, and that makes it real. Makes it _painful_. He takes in a shuddering breath that doesn’t fill his lungs and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Carol is still hissing in his ear. “I’m your best friend, Rick. You should have--”

“ _Carol_ ,” Rick gasps out. His eyes fly open and meet hers, wide with panic. “Carol, I can’t. I can’t. I _can’t_.”

“Deep breaths,” Carol murmurs, her countenance and demeanor changing drastically as understanding dawns on her face. “Come now, deep breaths. Do not let that _mangy cur_ get to you. Breathe in. Breathe out.” Her hand is on his arm, firm and soothing. “In and out. That’s it.”

Rick follows along with her instructions as best he can, keeping his eyes locked on hers. He attempts to drag a breath into his lungs and then release it, but his body won’t accept the oxygen properly and he feels his vision going dark, his knees becoming weak. Carol turns and motions across the room, and a few seconds later Abraham’s arm is around Rick’s waist, holding him up and leading him out of the room.

They make it to the hallway outside the room, away from the eyes of the _ton_ , and Rick looks up at his father and attempts to thank him for helping him out of the crowds.

But he can’t manage to pull enough breath into his lungs for speech, and Rick feels his legs give way beneath him and his head begin to spin from lack of oxygen, and he only has time to register Abraham’s and Carol’s hands grasping at him before everything goes black.

//

It’s some time later that Rick wakes up in his bed, dressed in his normal nighttime attire of a sleep tunic and cap. Abraham is sitting in a chair across the room, still reading the same book of opera history from earlier even though from what Rick can tell, he hasn’t progressed more than a couple of pages in the narrative.

“Father,” Rick begins, and Abraham snaps his book shut and crosses over to the bed.

“You fainted,” Abraham explains. “And Miss Horvath told me what that despicable weasel’s ass said to you, and it’s a damn good thing you had your fit of the vapors because if you hadn’t, I would have gone back into that ballroom and hit him in the gut so hard his innards would have come out his nose. Talking to _my son_ like that.”

Rick reaches up and rubs his eyes tiredly. “He’s right, though, Father. Once everyone finds out that I’ve… that I’ve _jilted_ the _Duke of Bettsville_ … I’ll be lucky if I can find anyone who will have me. You said so yourself.” He sighs and stares off into the corner of the room. “Perhaps we should just go ahead and pack our things. Head to Cornwall and buy our goats. There’s no point in staying here, not if people are going to be so… _awful_.”

Abraham grunts, and his moustache shivers and casts about as if it’s looking for an answer all on its own. “We’ll do whatever we have to do,” he says after a moment. “It will be alright, Richard. I promise.” Rick doesn’t say anything, and Abraham leans down and kisses his forehead. “You get some rest. Things will look brighter in the morning.”

Rick sighs and rolls over, turning his back to his father. “I wish I believed that,” he murmurs, seeing Daryl’s face behind his eyes when he closes them. _I made the right choice_ , he tells himself firmly, thinking again of Carl, the boy who will never exist because he would never have had the life Rick would have wanted for him.

His head believes that, knows it to be true that the decision he’d made had been the right one and that in time it won’t hurt so much. His heart, on the other hand…

Well, it would heal. It would have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter ended on another sad note, but because I love you guys and want you to be happy, I'm going to provide a Christmas Miracle and post the next chapter TOMORROW (instead of making you wait until Saturday)! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
> 
> Also, sorry I'm so behind on responding to comments. I will get caught up soon, I promise!


	19. A Momentous Visit

Rick’s eyes flutter open to a soft tapping sound, images of goats and oceans and blue-eyed children fading into his mind until he’s left with only a vague impression of a dream that was sad and lonely and very strange indeed. He sighs heavily, attempting to snuggle back down under his covers and go back to sleep. The hole in his chest is still there, even as he sleeps, but he tries his best to ignore it and almost, _almost_ succeeds.

There’s another quiet tapping sound at the window followed by a much louder bang, and Rick blinks back the beginnings of another round of sleep and sits up in the bed, rubbing at his eyes.

“Rick,” a voice calls softly from behind the closed window. “Let me in. Please, I beg you.”

It’s Daryl’s voice, of course it is. Rick would know that voice anywhere, after any number of years, over the loud bleating of any number of goats. But instead of warming his heart and making his pulse race as it had done just days ago, now it only makes Rick _sad_ , makes the ache in his chest feel sharper, the edges more ragged. Because Daryl has had his chance, and Rick doesn’t feel like listening to yet another rationalization, yet another condescending “I know what’s best for you” talk when it’s the duke who doesn’t understand what would have been best for _both of them_.

But still, Rick had had days to think over his decision, to hold it up to the light and examine it from every possible angle, to see the darkness within the shining bauble of their relationship and recognize that nothing he himself could do could ever quite remove it. He cannot make the duke admit that he loves him, that it would have been a love match. Only Daryl could have done that. But he did not choose to do so, and so that’s all. There is nothing more to say on Rick’s end. The book is closed, even if his heart still hurts from it and will likely never stop.

Daryl, though... he may still need closure, need to think things through. And Rick still loves him with all he has in his soul and the very least he can do is give the duke the chance to respond, to say his piece back and get it off his chest so that they can part as--not friends. They will never be _friends_. They will only ever be star-crossed lovers, a cautionary tale to the children of the _ton_ to convince them not to fall too hard too fast. But they can part as acquaintances, at least. And so Rick sighs and sits up, lighting the candle at his bedside and then padding over to the window with the candle-dish in his hand.

Daryl is perched in the tree outside Rick’s window, dressed in riding clothes and looking so devastatingly handsome that Rick’s throat constricts at the sight. His posture in the tree is utterly comfortable, and it occurs to Rick that this is the first time he’s seen the duke completely in his element--high up in a tree, leaves in his hair, his hands bare of gloves and curled around rough branches instead of polished banisters. Rick sets the candle-dish down on the windowsill and undoes the latch, slides the window open but keeps it blocked with his own body so that Daryl will remain outside.

“Rick,” the duke breathes, relief washing over his face. “Let me in. I must speak to you at once.”

“Then speak,” Rick says. He crosses his arms over his chest, the slight chill from the night air meeting almost no resistance as it seeps in through the thin linen of his long sleeping tunic. He takes a moment to wish he was more thoroughly dressed--wearing buckskins or at least _leggings_ under his shirt rather than being bare from his thighs down, or that he’d grabbed his dressing robe and shrugged it onto his shoulders to shield him from both the chill and the duke’s eyes.

Daryl’s eyes narrow slightly in confusion and he looks past Rick into the room, lit only dimly by the candlelight and the moon. “May I come in?”

“No,” Rick says, averting his eyes from Daryl’s only to let them land on the duke’s hands, fingers curled around the tree branch as they had curled around Rick’s appendage only days ago, as they will never curl around Rick again. “You may say your piece from the window and then...” He takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders and wills himself to stay strong. “And then go home and leave me be.”

“I cannot,” Daryl insists, letting go of one of the branches to lean forward, his weight shifting effortlessly on the branch as he reaches his hand out to touch Rick’s chin. Rick flinches backward and shakes his head, and Daryl sighs and drops his hand again. “I cannot go home. I cannot go anywhere. Rick, I have a caravan of carriages stopped at an inn in Stokenchurch with all my worldly possessions stuffed into chests and bags and I know not what else. I was leaving London, going back to Ashthorpe, because I cannot imagine staying in this city without seeing you, without calling upon you every morning.” He takes a deep breath. “But I was lying in a cold bed in an inn and thinking about how I could no longer imagine staying at _Ashthorpe_ without you, either. About how I would see you around every corner like you’d been there forever, how your face would haunt me for the rest of my life if I gave you up.”

“You already did,” Rick whispers, then clears his throat and speaks louder. “You made the decision to care more about being _right_ than about being truthful. Even to the point of hurting us both.”

“I know.” Daryl shifts in the tree again, sending the leaves rustling and drifting to the ground. “I was wrong, Rick. And I vow to you that I will do everything in my power to win you back.”

Rick sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, willing his heart to hold firm to its convictions. “Everything in your power,” he repeats, carefully not looking at Daryl lest the look in the duke’s eyes cause him to waver.

“ _Anything_ ,” Daryl says, low and rough and insistent. “No bastard children. No paramours. Only you.” He pauses, lets his voice fade into a whisper. “Only you, Rick. If you’ll still have me.”

Rick crosses his arms over his chest again, hugging into himself for warmth. “If I let you in this window, you will take me in your arms and kiss me. You’ll put your fingers in my hair and your mouth on my neck. You may even undress me, make love to me at last, tell me how beautiful I am and how much you want me.” Daryl nods slowly, the kindling of lust catching in his eyes and slowly growing like a carefully-stoked fireplace. Rick sighs again. “And then I will tell you I love you, or that you are all I will ever want. And you will cast me aside again and give me your usual pompous lecture about how the fact that your father was a despicable weasel’s ass means that you have that in your blood as well and that nothing either of us can do will change that. And Daryl, I can no longer live with that. Either you burn for me always, or you must put the fire out. It is your decision but I cannot live in this middle ground anymore.”

Daryl is silent for several seconds, his bottom lip caught between his teeth and his eyes far away. Then, at last, he nods. “Then I shall happily burn.”

Rick clamps down quickly on the surge of joy that erupts from the vicinity of his chest. “Then you must say it.”

Daryl blinks. “What must I say?”

“That you love me,” Rick says, then speaks again before Daryl can open his mouth to protest. “You feel it. I know you do. I can see it in your eyes, feel it in your fingertips whenever you touch me. You only need to say the words. Look at me and say it, and I will be yours.”

Daryl takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for only the barest moment, but to Rick it feels like an eternity, like entire civilizations could rise and fall in the interim. Then, finally: “Let me inside.”

Rick lets out a long breath, disappointment and a deep, crushing sadness spreading through his veins like ice crystals on glass. “If you won’t say it--”

“I’m not going to say it for the first time while I’m hanging in a bloody _tree_ ,” Daryl mutters, then locks eyes with Rick, sincerity smoldering in his pupils. “Let me in.”

Rick bites his lip and then nods slowly, stepping away from the window to give Daryl room to climb inside. Daryl clambers in the window, leaving it open behind him as he slides quickly over to Rick. He lifts his hands and rests one on Rick’s cheek, the other against the side of Rick’s neck, his thumb pressing lightly against the wildly pounding pulse point there.

“I cannot live without you,” he says, then leans in and kisses Rick gently, mouth moving reverently as if he’s praying against Rick’s lips. Rick sighs against him, letting himself be drawn in even though the words aren’t quite right, aren’t quite what he wants to hear. Daryl’s mouth is heaven, perfection, and he’s telling Rick that he loves him right now using his lips and his tongue and his fingers pressing into Rick’s skin, but it’s still not enough. It’s still not what he needs, and as long as Daryl can’t give Rick something as small as three words--even when it’s obvious that he feels them--then nothing has changed. Rick squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, steeling himself to ask Daryl to leave yet again, to dash his own heart once more against the stones at the bottom of the Cornwall cliffs he’s destined for.

And then Daryl pulls back, moves the hand on his neck up to Rick’s cheek and cups his face gently. Rick lets his eyes flutter open to find Daryl’s own dark blue irises staring deeply into his own, and Rick can’t look away, can’t quite bring himself to send him away just yet. He just needs a few more seconds, one more moment to pretend that--

“Richard Morgan Grimes,” Daryl breathes, eyes bright and sparkling in the candlelight. “I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and happy Random December Day to everyone else! Skari loves you!


	20. A Spectacular Consummation

Time slows for a moment as Daryl’s words settle into Rick’s skin, sinking into his pores like water, like truth. And then Rick breaks into a brilliant smile, tears forming at the corners of his eyes but not quite spilling over onto his cheeks. “Say it again,” he whispers.

Daryl smiles too, lowering his hands from Rick’s face and placing them on his hips, rubbing his thumbs over Rick’s hipbones in a way that’s so familiar, so _Daryl_ , that Rick can’t help but let out a breathless chuckle. Daryl leans forward and brushes his mouth against Rick’s and speaks against his lips. “I love you, Rick.”

Rick laughs again, merry and free, and loops his arms around Daryl’s broad shoulders, presses his body forward against the duke’s. “I love you too, Daryl.”

Daryl kisses him again, his bare hands burning Rick’s flesh through the thin layer of linen, and Rick shivers and steps in even closer, whimpering softly as his cock rubs against the flat planes of Daryl’s stomach. Daryl slides his hands around behind Rick, cupping his ass and pulling Rick against him even harder. “Let me show you,” he murmurs, dragging his lips across Rick’s cheek and up to his ear. “Let me make love to you.”  

Rick moans and arches his neck to let Daryl kiss his way down it. “Take me,” he whispers. “Make me your duchess.”

Daryl groans against Rick’s neck. “My duchess,” he repeats, then pulls back just far enough to scoop Rick up into his arms. Rick shrieks in surprise and Daryl carries him quickly across the room and dumps him down onto the mattress before climbing up over him and pressing his finger to Rick’s lips. “Shh, dearling. Your father will hear.”

“Let him,” Rick says, eyes glimmering in the candlelight. “What will he do if he discovers us? Force you to marry me? That will be happening in three days anyway.”

Daryl sits back on his knees on the bed, pressing a hand over his heart. “ _Two_ days,” he gasps, plastering a faux-horrified look on his face. “My dear duchess, how could you forget our wedding date?”

“I’m quite sure it’s three,” Rick says, but he is quickly distracted by Daryl’s mouth descending onto his collarbone, Daryl’s weight pressing down on him from above. He arches up against the duke, excitement sparkling in every cell of his body.

“It’s after midnight,” Daryl mutters against Rick’s nightshirt. “That means it’s now _two_ days.” He reaches between them and quickly undoes his cravat, tosses it onto the floor beside the bed and then reaches for Rick’s nightcap. “No more caps when you sleep, Lady Dixon. I demand full access to your curls at all times.”

The cap quickly joins Daryl’s discarded cravat on the floor and Daryl’s hands sink into Rick’s hair with abandon, running through his curls with no regard for propriety, for leaving the style intact enough for Rick to be presentable afterwards. “Lady Dixon,” Rick repeats, feeling slightly thunderstruck at the sound of the name on Daryl’s lips.

Daryl smiles and kisses him deeply, rolling his fully-clothed body down against Rick’s scantily-clad one. “Lady Richard Morgan Dixon,” he says, sitting up again and running his hands down Rick’s sides and grabbing hold of the hem of his nightshirt, “Duchess of Bettsville.”

Rick whimpers happily and lets Daryl pull the nightshirt off, arching his back to let the fabric slide underneath it, and then he’s naked, laid out in front of the duke like a Christmas feast. But he doesn’t have time to be self-conscious because Daryl is shrugging off his riding jacket, reaching into a pocket sewn into the lining and pulling out a bottle of what appears to be oil.

“To make it easier,” Daryl explains, then puts the bottle on the table beside the bed and stands up, making short work of the rest of his clothing.

Rick can’t help but stare hungrily as the duke’s body comes into view, the perfect slope of his shoulders, the hard planes of his abs, the flex of his biceps as he reaches down to slide his riding breeches over his narrow hips and then down farther, until the smooth purple head of his cock peeks out, a bead of sticky liquid glistening on its tip. Rick licks his lips and looks up into Daryl’s eyes, pupils slowly widening as the duke’s breeches hit the floor and he steps out of them, his cock springing free.

Rick’s eyes widen as he takes in the impressive length and girth of the duke’s appendage, and even though he’s never seen another one besides his own, he’s pretty well convinced that this cock is the most perfect cock in London, in Great Britain, in the entire world, and he has a ridiculous urge to find his watercolors and devote his life to painting an exact image of it. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip again and whispers the only question that matters: “Will it fit?”

Daryl huffs out a breathless laugh and returns to the bed, knocking Rick’s legs open with his knee and then settling down between them. “It will if I stretch you out a bit, as I did in the carriage. It may sting a bit at first, but it will feel good very soon.” He runs a hand softly down Rick’s leg from the thigh to the calf, then closes his fingers around Rick’s ankle and pulls his leg up to rest on Daryl’s shoulder. “Do you trust me, dearling?”

Rick nods quickly, swallowing hard and feeling just slightly more powerful as the duke’s eyes snap to his throat to follow the motion. “I trust you. I love you.”

Daryl blinks rapidly, then lets a small but joyful smile spread across his features. “And I you, Lady Dixon,” he replies, leaning forward to grab the bottle of oil from the nightstand. He uncorks it and coats his fingers, then locks eyes with Rick as he reaches down and runs the tip of his finger around Rick’s entrance. “Just like in the carriage,” he says, his voice feather-light and soothing. “Only it will feel even better this time, with the oil.”

“I don’t see how it could feel better than that,” Rick breathes out, torn between closing his eyes and just _feeling_ everything and leaving his eyes open to watch the gorgeous man above him move.

The duke chuckles softly and slowly presses one finger inside, smiling as Rick’s body arches with an accompanying moan. “Wait until I’m inside you,” he murmurs, withdrawing his finger almost all the way and then pressing it forward again. “Wait until I’m fucking you.”

“F-fucking me?” Rick asks, then bites his lip to keep silent as Daryl crooks his finger inside Rick’s body and brushes against the bundle of nerves there.

“When I do _this_ ,” Daryl says, sliding another finger inside and pumping them in and out a couple of times, “with my cock.”

“Oh, heavens, yes.” Rick squirms, then practically flies off the bed as the duke’s other hand wraps around his own cock and starts to stroke it. “I want that. Please, Daryl.”

“Just a little more, dearling,” Daryl coos at him, then adds a third finger, spreading and stretching and driving Rick quite mad until Rick is certain he can take no more, that he will come undone just as he had in the carriage before he can even feel the duke inside him.

“Daryl, _now_.”

Daryl is breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly, a tiny drop of sweat creeping down the indentation in the center of his abs. “Yes,” he says, then withdraws his fingers from Rick’s body and coats his appendage with another layer of oil. He positions it at Rick’s entrance and then looks up into Rick’s eyes. “Only you. Forever.”

Rick opens his mouth to respond but then Daryl is pressing inside slowly, gripping Rick’s hips with both hands to hold him still as he sinks into Rick’s body. It’s uncomfortable, the duke’s girth being more impressive than the sum of his fingers, and Rick tenses up and bites his lip, the tendons in his neck standing out with the strain.

“Shh,” Daryl whispers, rubbing his thumbs over Rick’s hipbones soothingly. “Relax your muscles. I will not move until you are ready.”

Rick bites harder on his lip, eyes squeezed shut in the dim room, and he has one more moment of panic before his heart catches up with his mind and whispers that this is Daryl, his beloved, and he has nothing to fear. He nods, then takes a deep breath and lets his body go loose, his straining tendons relax into the bed, the muscles holding Daryl’s cock finally agree to receive him.

“There you are, Rick,” Daryl says, then reaches up to touch Rick’s chin gently with the tips of his fingers. “Look at me. Let me see what your eyes look like while I’m inside you.”

Rick lets out a soft moan at the words and then opens his eyes, looks deep into Daryl’s, midnight blue rings nearly indistinguishable from the blown-out pools of black at the centers. Already the sensation of being filled is changing from an unpleasant sting to a delicious ache, and he remembers the perfect tip of Daryl’s cock and wonders with a soft shudder what it will feel like to have _that_ press against the secret place inside him. “I’m ready,” he murmurs and then, because Rick is nothing if not a quick study: “Fuck me.”

Daryl’s whole body jerks at the words and his cock slides just a bit farther inside, enough to nudge lightly at Rick’s prostate, and Rick’s back arches off the bed when he feels the sparkle of ecstasy erupt through his brain. His own cock twitches and Daryl reaches down and grabs it, his hand still slick from oiling up his own appendage, then starts stroking it at the same time that he lets himself slide the rest of the way inside Rick, bottoming out with a deep, guttural moan.

“Bloody hell,” Daryl mutters, then pulls back for a moment before sinking back in quickly. “You’re so _tight_ , Rick. Jesus Christ in heaven.”

A pink tinge colors Rick’s cheeks. “I apologize,” he says, trying to concentrate on relaxing even more to alleviate the offending tightness. “I will try to--”

“Do _not_ apologize for that,” Daryl huffs out, pulling out again and then thrusting back inside harder than before. “Tight is good. Tight is _very_ good. God _damn_.”

Rick blinks, processing this, and then experimentally squeezes his muscles intentionally. Daryl’s mouth falls open and he gasps, the slow rhythm he’s set up with his hand and his cock stuttering and pausing for a moment. Rick bites his lip again but impishly this time, watching Daryl’s firm chest heaving with effort and desire.

After a moment, Daryl starts thrusting again, faster and deeper but still gentle, still polite. “Well, who knew that Mr. Rick Grimes was a little vixen?” he says breathlessly, then shrugs Rick’s leg from his shoulder. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

Rick does so, tightening his muscles ever so slightly again just to see the expression on Daryl’s face go blank with lust for a moment. “Rick _Dixon_ ,” he corrects, baring his neck to Daryl’s sudden onslaught of lips and teeth.

Daryl growls against Rick’s neck and bites down gently there, then starts stroking in earnest as he speeds up his thrusts. Rick moans again, wrapping his arms around Daryl and then digging his nails in to the skin of the duke’s back. “Fuck me,” he says again, and Daryl gasps, his mouth falling open and his breath hot on Rick’s throat. He drags his lips down to Rick’s collarbone then, sucks on it hard enough to leave a mark, and then stops thrusting for the barest moment while he adjusts his position.

Then the next thrust hits Rick so perfectly that he cannot help but _yell_ Daryl’s name, other occupants of the house be damned, and Daryl hisses out a short profanity and then leans up, catches Rick’s lips with his own and kisses him deeply, swallowing all of Rick’s shouts and noises down into his own lungs while his cock massages Rick’s prostate perfectly with every thrust, every movement. The duke’s hand is hot and slick around Rick’s cock, pumping it faster with a firm grip, and after that it’s only moments until Rick feels his body reacting, tensing with anticipation, and then with one final thrust Rick digs his nails harder into Daryl’s back and comes, his body nearly flying off the bed with the force of it. Daryl kisses him through it, muffles the sounds as much as he can, and then Rick sags back against the bed, boneless and sated, his vision sparkling at the edges and his breath coming out in sobs of joy.

Daryl adjusts himself again, releasing Rick’s cock to go back to gripping his hips, and with one, two, _three_ more hard, punched thrusts, he moans into Rick’s mouth and comes too, hot liquid filling Rick’s insides in thick spurts, and Rick clings to him, murmuring broken endearments into his beloved’s ear as they both relax, their heartbeats returning to normal, syncing up with each other to beat in unison.

Afterwards, Rick attaches himself, leech-like, to Daryl’s side and refuses to let the duke climb out of bed or make himself presentable, and after a bit of half-hearted protesting for propriety’s sake, Daryl gives in and shifts them around so that he can blow out the candle and pull the blanket over them. Rick drapes his arm over Daryl’s midsection and lays his head on the duke’s chest, and there’s not much in the way of speaking for a long time, just Rick’s fingers tracing abstract patterns on Daryl’s stomach and Daryl periodically dipping his chin down to kiss the top of Rick’s head.

Rick smiles to himself, experimentally tightening his muscles just to feel the low ache of emptiness where Daryl had been only minutes ago, then snuggles in closer and lets out a long sigh of contentment. The room is dark and quiet and the bed is warm, filled with Daryl and love and happiness, and it’s not long before Rick’s eyelids become heavy, his body slowly relaxing into sleep.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs, already half-asleep, and he just manages to hear the duke whisper _always_ before he slides into dreams of Daryl, of the future, of the rest of their lives spent together.

//

It’s much later when Rick drifts back up into consciousness, his head still on the duke’s chest and his body just slightly stiff from the exertions of earlier. Daryl’s breathing is even but shallow, belying the fact that he’s awake too, lying very still so as not to wake Rick.

The sky outside is a deep charcoal gray now, slowly starting to lighten but not quite bright enough to call it morning just yet. Rick tilts his head to press his lips against Daryl’s chest but doesn’t move otherwise, just lies there with his beloved and enjoys the feeling of being close, of being wanted, of being cared for.

He’s almost dozed back off when Daryl whispers, silver-soft into the darkness. “I’m afraid.”

Rick blinks, his mind switching back into alertness as he processes the duke’s words. “You have no need to be.”

“I…” Daryl trails off, sighs, then tries again. “I do love you. I wasn’t lying to you. But I’m so frightened that it’s not going to be enough. That… that I will turn out to have been right about everything and then I will lose you.”

It’s a discussion this time and not a lecture, and Rick’s heart aches at the tone of childlike fear in the powerful duke’s voice. And it’s that change, from condescending declarations to quiet, frightened questions, that makes all the difference to Rick. He shifts his position and then puts his hand on Daryl’s arm, pulls the duke over onto his side so that they are face-to-face, bare legs tangled under the blankets. “You have nothing to fear.”

“But what if I’m not enough for you?” Daryl whispers, his eyes large and strangely vulnerable. “What if you meet someone else and--”

“I will not,” Rick assures him, leaning forward to press a kiss to Daryl’s lips. “I will be devoted to you for the rest of my life. I swear it.”

Daryl pulls Rick closer to him and leans their foreheads together. “And what if… what if blood does tell after all and _I_ slip?”

Rick runs his hand gently up and down Daryl’s arm. “Do you intend to be unfaithful?” he asks, and there’s no fear in his own heart this time at what the answer might be, because he already knows it. Already knows that Daryl is finally speaking from a place of vulnerability and not malice, already knows that Daryl has honor and kindness and love in his soul that the previous duke must never have had.

“No, never,” Daryl says, looking utterly disgusted at the mere idea. “But what if I do something else that hurts you? What if I turn out sullen and cold like my father? What if I am not a good father to our children, despite my best efforts? What if I can’t be the man you think I am, the man I want to be for you?”

“Daryl,” Rick says, leaning away from the duke enough to look him in the eyes. “You are stronger than you believe yourself to be. If you are determined that you will be a better man than the dukes before you, then you will be. You do not _have_ to be miserable just because _they_ were.”

Daryl sighs and lifts his thumb to his mouth, nibbles at the corner of his thumbnail. “You truly believe that we will be happy always.”

“Oh, heavens no,” Rick answers, smiling broadly and snuggling back in, wrapping his arms around Daryl’s neck and kissing him with a light press of lips. “I fully expect that you shall infuriate me sometimes with your stubbornness and your insistence on tromping over Persian rugs with forest dirt on your boots. I’m certain that you will end up vandalizing your own pianoforte just to make me stop attempting to play it. I’m sure that we will bicker and argue and grate on each others’ poor nerves for the rest of our lives.” He smiles again and runs a hand over Daryl’s back. “But here is what I know. I love you, Daryl, and you love me. We both wish to be happy together and to have a life filled with so much joy that it makes the rest of society feel slightly ill. We both wish to have children and to raise them to be strong men and women who aren’t afraid to love. And we are both committed to being good husbands for one another, to give each other all the joy we can provide. And that means that we _will_ be happy. Because we choose to be.”

“But what if--”

“Then we will discuss it and deal with it and forgive one another,” Rick interrupts, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Daryl huffs out a laugh. “You don’t even know what I was planning to say.”

“It does not matter,” Rick points out. “Whatever happens, no matter how painful… as long as we love and respect each other, it will all come out right as rain in the end.”

Daryl is silent for several seconds, then he nods slowly. “You are quite right. As always.”

Rick giggles. “You’ll do well to remember that,” he teases. “It will save you a great deal of time in the future.”

The duke chuckles back and swats playfully at Rick, then sobers. “We will be married in two days. I do not know how I shall manage to wait that long before you’re mine.”

Rick feels a blush creeping up his neck and blooming out onto his cheeks. “I rather think I already _am_ yours.”

Daryl smiles and lifts himself up onto his elbow, then nudges Rick so that he’s flat on his back with Daryl leaning over him. “Thank you for accepting me back into your life.”

“I missed you,” Rick breathes, letting his legs fall open so that Daryl can settle his knees between them again. “Thank _you_ for deciding that I am worth the risk.”

The duke leans forward and kisses Rick deeply, demanding and immediately receiving entrance to Rick’s mouth with his tongue. “I love you,” he says after the kiss breaks, his voice husky and rough, heavy with promise.

Rick stares up at him, pupils blown and body already aching to be filled once more. “Are you going to make love to me again?” He smiles at the duke’s quick intake of breath and then pushes Daryl onto his back, sitting up and swinging a leg over him to straddle him on the bed.

Daryl groans, his hands taking flight and landing on Rick’s hips. “Richard,” he admonishes, but his tone of conviction is quite ruined by the stirring Rick feels against his backside. “We shouldn’t do this again. Not until after the wedding.”

“But that is still two days from now,” Rick points out. He reaches behind himself and runs his hand over Daryl’s rapidly hardening cock, then lifts his hips and reaches for the bottle on the nightstand, his eyes twinkling merrily down at Daryl’s already lust-glazed expression. “And besides, I never promised to be _proper_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES! *throws confetti* They finally did the thing!


	21. A Breathtaking Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this one! Round of applause for my betas, Michelle_A_Emerlind and TWDObsessive, for all of their help! And a special shout-out here to MermaidSheenaz, MaroonCamaro, and 1lostone for talking me down from the "throwing this entire chapter away in a huff" ledge last night. I love all of you guys <3

The morning of the wedding dawns grey and cold, sputtering just enough rain to make walking muddy and troublesome. Rick is standing by the window in his bedroom, gazing out into the street below and watching as the rain splatters against the window, when Abraham knocks on the door and then lets himself into his son’s room.

“Just checking on you, my boy,” Abraham says, walking over to clap Rick on the shoulder. “See how you’re holding up.”

Rick lets out a long sigh and turns his eyes to Abraham. “Father,” he whispers. “It’s the most beautiful morning that’s ever dawned.”

Abraham rolls his eyes and walks over to sit on a chair in the corner of the room. “It’s a miserable day.”

“No day when I am to marry Daryl Dixon could possibly be miserable,” Rick insists, leaning against the windowframe and smiling into the rain. “Besides, rain is a good sign. It means new beginnings. Cleansing. _Life_.”

“How long have you been standing there contemplating the rain?” Abraham asks, raising an eyebrow. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Very little,” Rick admits, then turns and beams at his father. “But it hardly matters. I’m sure I’ll be back in bed by midday.”

Abraham’s moustache twitches at that even though the man himself stays very still, stern. “I suppose as long as he meets you at the altar, he’s permitted to bed you afterwards,” he grumbles, then wipes a hand across his face and clears his throat. “Richard, come sit down. I need you to pay attention to me right now.”

Rick gives one more soulful glance out into the rainy streets and then walks back to the bed, sitting down on the edge with a wince that Abraham pretends not to notice. “Yes, Father?”

“It’s my duty as your parent to... make sure that you know certain things. Before you go to bed with your husband.” He lets out a grumpy breath through his nose. “I rather think you might already know much of this, given the odd noises that have been coming from your room these last two nights since you and the duke reconciled, but I still must ask if you have questions you need answered. About... marital relations. Child-bearing. That sort of thing.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and not looking at Rick very conspicuously.

Rick’s cheeks are bright red by the end of his father’s speech, and he shakes his head quickly. “I have no questions, Father.”

Abraham stands up with great haste, relief flooding his features, then pauses. “Are you quite certain?”

“Yes,” Rick says, nodding furiously as if the speed of the gesture will hasten his father’s exit from the room. “Quite.”

“Very well,” Abraham says, then walks over and pulls Rick to his feet. “I love you, Rick,” he says, then pulls Rick in close for a tight hug. “I want you to be happy. Tell me again that this man will make you happy.”

“Oh, Father, he will,” Rick assures him, clinging to Abraham for several seconds and then kissing the other man’s cheek as he pulls away. “He will make me _perfectly_ happy.”

Abraham grunts, his eyes bright and his moustache shifting around restlessly. “And you won’t forget your old father when you’re out in Warwickshire with your duke and your dozens of children and your hunting dogs and your god-awful amount of money?”

Rick laughs brightly and leans forward to kiss Abraham’s cheek again. “I will not forget you, Father. I promise. And I shall come back to town and visit often. It’s not _so_ far from here to Ashthorpe and you will see me often.”

“Do you promise?” Abraham asks, and it’s strangely vulnerable, soft.

“I promise,” Rick says, meeting his father’s eyes so he can see the sincerity in Rick’s gaze.

Abraham watches him for several seconds and then nods decisively. “Alright, then. Let’s go make you a duchess.”

//

When they arrive at the church, Rick lets himself be bustled into a small dressing room. Abraham is resplendent in his military attire as he stands guard beside the door, and Carol and Glenn fuss about getting Rick buffed and polished and straightened and brought back down to earth, fretting and sighing and making Shane’s job really quite difficult as the valet attempts to make sure that Rick’s hair and waistcoat and cravat are _just so_. Shane, for his part, seems strangely resigned and aloof, most likely because he will miss the city when he follows Rick out to Warwickshire, and Rick decides that he will ask Daryl for a raise in pay for Shane once they’re at Ashthorpe to make it up to him. After all, he sees no reason at all why everyone shouldn’t be as happy as he himself will be, sitting beside fireplaces and on picnic blankets with the man who will in just a few moments be his husband.

His _husband_. Oh, heavens, what a thought!

Rick spends a long time at the large mirror in the room staring at himself, taking stock of the new suit that he’d had made especially for the event--the charcoal gray tailcoat and pantaloons, perfectly fitted and, from what Carol and Glenn assure him, very flattering. He smooths the deep plum-colored silk of his waistcoat and bats Shane away for the hundredth time as the valet tries to put something in his hair to make it lie flat. Daryl _had_ demanded access to his curls at all times, and Rick is quite determined that their wedding will be no exception, fashionable hairstyles be damned. Rick smiles softly at his reflection in the mirror and draws himself up to his full height, letting his life officially shift from bachelorhood to marital bliss as the seconds tick by until the appointed time.

And then it _is_ time, and Rick slips his hand into the crook of his father’s arm and walks out to the church proper. It’s a small gathering, as weddings usually are. The wedding breakfast will have many guests, but the ceremony itself is small and intimate--just Rick and Daryl, with Abraham and Merle standing with them, then a small gathering of close friends: Sir Axel, Carol, Dale, and Glenn. Rick thinks it’s perfect, and he spends a moment pondering the joy of family and friends before Daryl steps forward into view and all other thoughts melt away like beeswax under a flame.

The duke is breathtaking, standing there in stark black and white attire with a single plum-colored flower pinned to his lapel, and Rick has the sudden urge to pinch himself because surely there’s no way that such a man could possibly be waiting at the front of a church for _him_. But when Daryl turns and sees Rick, his entire face lights up as if a hole has broken in the ceiling and streamed sunlight down directly upon the duke’s face, and all of Rick’s doubts fade away in the deep cerulean of Daryl’s gaze.

The ceremony itself Rick barely remembers. He repeats the vows along with the clergyman as he’s expected to, and he’s aware that Daryl is doing the same, but it hardly matters because their eyes are locked on each other, the promises they’re making flowing between them without needing the words. It’s not until everyone bursts into applause and Daryl reaches forward and pulls Rick in for a deep kiss that he even breaks eye contact for a second, ducking his head and blushing as the duke pulls him into his arms and laughs softly, his lips pressed into Rick’s curls as the priest declares them man and husband.

And as Rick buries his head into the crook of Daryl’s neck, breathing in his scent and feeling Daryl’s strong arms holding him close in the presence of their loved ones, it occurs to him that everything in both of their lives has led them to this moment, this future together, bright and full of love and promise, and the tears he feels brimming in his eyes are finally tears of happiness and contentment, of coming home at last and finding his future in the arms of the man he loves. The man who loves him back just as much.

His husband. His duke. His love.

//

The wedding breakfast is held at Daryl’s house in the city, and it is beautiful. There are delicious foods all around: eggs and biscuits and beans and bacon, tarts and meat pies, lemonade and champagne flowing like water from a well. There is even some impromptu dancing as Glenn sits down at the pianoforte and agrees to play a little jig for those who are inclined to dance. The guests have a lovely time, talking and playing cards and discussing the love match that had unfolded before their very eyes during this most interesting Season. Later, Carol will tell Rick all about it, congratulating him for a very successful event.

Now, though, Rick is supremely unaware of the goings-on at his wedding breakfast given the fact that Daryl has scooped him up immediately upon entering the ducal mansion and is carrying him up the stairs, completely bypassing the ballroom where the guests have gathered and instead pausing in front of a set of heavy, carved-ebony doors that can only lead to the duke’s chambers. Rick swallows hard, his arms looped around Daryl’s neck, and then Daryl opens the doors and carries Rick inside, setting him down gently on his feet once they’ve crossed the threshold into the room. Rick takes a deep breath and looks around, letting his eyes run over the large wardrobe and the dressing mirror on one wall, the tapestries hanging beside a large window, the comfortable-looking chaise lounge positioned beside a well-stocked bookcase. And then, finally, he turns his eyes to the large piece of furniture that dominates the room.

Daryl’s _bed._

It’s positively enormous, with towering posts at all four corners and a canopy of forest-green fabric draped artfully across the top of the posters. The blankets are a deep green, too, velvet with lighter green vines and leaves carefully embroidered around the edges, and there are rather a lot of pillows, more than Rick has ever seen on one bed in his entire life.

The click of a lock breaks Rick’s breathless reverie, and he turns to look at Daryl, who’s smiling at him with one hand still on the latch. “Does this room please you, Your Grace?” the duke asks, eyes twinkling in the morning light pouring in from the window.

“Very much,” Rick answers, then tears his eyes away from the bed and looks back at Daryl. “We are officially wed now. Man and husband.” He smiles and smooths his waistcoat nervously, letting out a breathless laugh. “That is, I suppose we are. I scarcely remember what words we said in the church just now. I was too lost in your eyes at the time to register them. I may very well have promised to move to India and ride tigers for sport and I would not know.”

Daryl smiles and pulls Rick back into his arms, running his lips along Rick’s jawline. “Then I suppose I ought to remind you of precisely what you promised me. Of what we promised one another.”

Rick tilts his head to give Daryl more room, letting his eyes settle once again on the sea of blankets he’s about to be part of. “Put me in your bed and make love to me.”

Daryl groans and captures Rick’s lips in a heated kiss. “Finally,” the duke breathes against Rick’s mouth. “Finally, you are _mine_.” He puts his hands on Rick’s hips and walks them backward toward the bed. “You are my duchess at last.”

“Your husband, now and always,” Rick agrees, sliding his arms around Daryl’s neck as the duke lifts him and then deposits him easily onto the mattress before crawling over him there.

Daryl smiles, then sits up to begin quickly removing the layers of fabric that separate their bodies. Rick joins in, shedding his clothing like the remnants of an old life and discarding them just as easily, and then they’re both bare to one another and Daryl slides back over him, kissing him again with hunger sparkling in his eyes.

“Yes,” Rick breathes, slipping his arms around Daryl’s neck and arching against him wantonly, desperate to have his husband inside him once more.

Daryl leans up for just long enough to reach for the bottle of oil on the nightstand and to coat his fingers with it. Rick’s cock stirs and leaps to attention faster than it has ever done before, and Daryl smiles and runs his index finger down the underside of it, making Rick shiver and moan. Daryl chuckles and moves his hand lower, and Rick takes a deep breath and relaxes his body as Daryl slips a finger inside. The duke takes his time, stretching and teasing, working Rick open with agonizing slowness until Rick is a writhing mess beneath him, gasping and whimpering for more, more, _more_ , but finally, after Rick is certain that years must have passed, the duke slicks himself up and positions himself at Rick’s entrance.

Rick bites his lip and looks up at Daryl, his eyes wide and dark with desire, and Daryl takes a deep breath and starts pushing inside, slow like the stars wheeling in the sky, and as he enters Rick’s body he starts to speak.

“I, Daryl Isaac Dixon, take thee, Richard Morgan Grimes to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.” With the final words, his body comes flush with Rick’s, his cock buried as far inside as it will go, and he holds there for several seconds while they stare into each other’s eyes.

“Move,” Rick whispers after a few seconds, wrapping his legs around Daryl’s waist and lifting his hips for better access. Daryl nods and does, starts thrusting ever so slowly, drawing himself out and then sliding back in with such tenderness that Rick can’t help but moan and reach up to grab hold of Daryl’s biceps. He licks his lips and locks eyes with Daryl again as the duke sets up a slow, intimate rhythm, then repeats the words to Daryl, feeling closer to God and holiness than he’s ever felt in his life before.

“With my body I thee worship,” Daryl breathes, then leans down and kisses Rick again, deeply and passionately, and Rick slides his trembling hands into Daryl’s hair and returns the kiss for several seconds before pulling back and speaking against Daryl’s lips.

“And with all my worldly goods I thee endow,” Rick whispers, rocking his hips up into Daryl so that the duke starts to move within him again. “In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen.”

“ _Rick_ ,” Daryl gasps, and then they’re moving together as if they truly have become one body, one soul, and Rick moans loudly and scrapes his nails down Daryl’s back while Daryl speeds up his thrusts, unerringly hitting Rick in all the right ways and when they come they do it together, spilling between and inside each other as one in the pale light of dawn and crying out each others’ names to the heavens.

//

Afterwards, they curl up together on the bed, covered in silken sheets and impossibly soft blankets, and after their heartbeats have returned to their normal slow unison, Daryl smiles and kisses the top of Rick’s head. “I rather think I owe Mr. Douglas a quite large token of gratitude.”

“I rather think we _both_ do,” Rick agrees. “But he is still in Scotland and in any case, I don’t feel the great desire to emerge from your bed for quite some time. And I would venture to guess that you agree with that sentiment.”

“You know,” Daryl says, reaching up to run his fingers over Rick’s jawline, “I do believe you’re right about that, Lady Dixon.”

Rick laughs and kisses Daryl’s neck. “Tell me my future again, Lord Dixon. Am I still going to be made love to in the forest?”

Daryl rumbles his approval and turns to kiss Rick’s lips softly. “My dear, you’re going to be made love to on every reasonably flat surface in Warwickshire. I shall make a list of every piece of furniture in Ashthorpe Manor and then make it my personal goal to _have_ you on each and every one.” Rick lets out a breathless little noise and sits up, rolling off the bed and gathering up his clothing. Daryl raises up on his elbows and watches curiously. “What became of ‘never emerging from my bed’?”

Rick looks up at him, eyes sparkling with joy and mischief. “I’d rather like to get started on that list with all haste,” he says, biting his bottom lip cheekily and smiling as Daryl’s eyes go dark again. “And therefore we should say goodbye to our guests so we can be on our way to Ashthorpe.”

Daryl laughs. “You certainly are a little vixen, my love.”

“ _Your_ little vixen,” Rick says, crossing back over to the bed with an armful of clothing and then leaning forward to kiss Daryl softly. “Your little duchess.”

Rick begins to pull away and get dressed, but Daryl catches his wrist and Rick turns to see the duke’s eyes on him, full of love and truth and simple joy. “I love you,” Daryl says softly. “With everything I am, Rick.”

Rick smiles softly and touches Daryl’s cheek. “And I you,” he says, quiet but firm. “Forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the wedding! There is one more chapter left, an epilogue set three months in the future. But also, I'm working on a couple of shorter sequel ideas that will be based on other pairings (but will still have a heavy dose of our favorite Duke and Duchess), so if anybody's interested in those, the Regency setting isn't over yet!


	22. Epilogue: A Blissful Forever

_Three months later_

The wedding breakfast of Sir Axel and the newly-wed Lady Carol Rayborne is more modest than Rick and Daryl’s had been, but it is still bright and cheerful and well-attended. Carol glows with happiness and stays mostly attached to Sir Axel’s arm, clearly utterly devoted to showing off her baronet as she drags him around to speak to everyone.

Lady Greene is also in attendance, having come back from his honeymoon in France to attend, and it occurs to Rick that marriage really suits his friend, who looks more confident and content than he had ever looked before he’d wed Lord Margaret Greene a mere month after Rick and Daryl’s wedding. The duke and duchess had reluctantly returned to town for that wedding and then gone back to Warwickshire only to be summoned back for Sir Axel’s wedding only two months later, and already Daryl is anxious to return to their home in the country. Presumably to continue his valiant quest to complete his checklist of the furniture at Ashthorpe he wishes to _have_ Rick on--a quest that’s already over halfway complete, and one that Rick must admit he encourages whenever possible.  

But now, Daryl is deeply involved in a conversation with Lord Raleigh about an issue being discussed in the House of Lords. Rick tries for a while to remain interested in the conversation, but the feast laid out on the sideboard continues to call his name, and eventually he leaves Daryl’s side to wander over to the table where the breakfast foods are artfully arranged. He passes over the chocolate eclairs and a plate of sausages and is contemplating whether he would prefer bread pudding or if he should help himself to a bit more bacon when Carol flits over to him with her husband in tow. Rick smiles at them.

“Rick, I cannot believe my happiness,” she says, her smile threatening to split her face entirely in two as she beams up at her husband. “And to think, only a few months ago we were all practically on the shelf.”

Rick rolls his eyes but nods. “I like to think that we were never _quite_ in danger of becoming spinsters,” he argues, then shrugs. “But I must say I’m quite delighted about how things have turned out.”

She leans in, her eyes twinkling. “And when might we expect the arrival of a new little Marquess?”

Rick frowns, picking up a small piece of bacon and popping it into his mouth. “Lord Dixon does seem awfully stubborn about that. I keep mentioning it, offering to do things… _that_ way, but he will have none of it.”

Sir Axel opens his mouth to speak, but Carol is faster, staring across the room with knit brows at Daryl. “I thought he wanted children.”

“He does,” Rick explains. “But I suppose he doesn’t want them _now_. Even if I’m quite impatient to start a family with him.”

Sir Axel frowns, then mutters, “But Lord Dixon said--”

“Well, perhaps he simply wants to spend time with only you first,” Carol offers, clearly oblivious to her husband’s soft speech. “That’s quite romantic in its own right.”

Rick hmms in agreement and then catches sight of a tray of tarts at the end of the table. He moves down toward them. “Well, children or no children, I am _quite_ happy with him.”

“You do seem to be,” Carol agrees, following Rick and taking a blackberry tart for herself. “Being a duchess agrees with you.”

“Too much, I expect.” Rick picks up a lemon tart and bites into it, letting his eyes flutter shut with delight as the sweet-sour taste floods over his tongue. “We have such a wonderful cook at Ashthorpe. I believe I have gained half a stone already just from the rich food they’ve been serving me.” He pats his belly and smiles. “But Daryl seems not to mind. Perhaps he even prefers a chubby duchess.”

Carol looks down at Rick’s waistcoat and then back up at the last bite of the tart as it disappears into Rick’s mouth. “Richard,” she says slowly. “Is that… a _lemon_ tart?”

Rick nods and reaches for another one. “They’re very good today. My compliments to your cook. They are _almost_ as good as the ones back home.”

“Richard,” she says again, a smile hovering at the corners of her lips. “You _despise_ lemon tarts. You told me once that you would rather starve to death than let another one in your sight.”

Rick tilts his head, thinking about this, then shrugs and shoves the second tart into his mouth. “I suppose,” he says, speaking around the food, “that my tastes have changed.”

Sir Axel’s face breaks into a sly grin and he puts a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “Lady Dixon, let me be the first to congratulate you on your happy announcement.”

Rick blinks and then swallows the rest of the tart. “I beg your pardon?”

The baronet leans in conspiratorially. “With the increase around your midsection and your newfound love for lemon tarts, not to mention how Lord Dixon spends most of his time leering at you from across the room like a cat that got the cream, my guess is that you are… with child.”

“I’m…” Rick takes a step back and blinks again, rapidly. “I’m not _with child_. We haven’t even been intimate in that… way…” Sir Axel keeps watching him, a rather smug little tilt to his eyebrows, and after a moment Rick sighs. “You don’t get with child through the mouth, do you,” he says, and it’s not even a question but Sir Axel still shakes his head, his cheeks dimpling with suppressed mirth. “You get with child through…”

The baronet nods sagely. “Through the posterior entrance, yes.”

Carol lets out a little gasp of surprise and Rick pinches the bridge of his nose, thinking of how very many times he and Daryl _had_ been intimate in _that_ particular way since their marriage. There’s even a record of such events that includes three beds, the formal dining table, a chessboard in the drawing room, and at least two pianofortes, one of which had to be repaired afterwards due to some very enthusiastic thrusting. Rick huffs out a breath. “Oh, _crumpets_. I’m pregnant.”

And as if summoned by the faintest whiff of distress from his duchess, Daryl immediately appears at his side and lifts Rick’s hand to his lips. “Are you feeling alright, dearling? You looked concerned.”

Carol laughs and then puts her hand on Rick’s shoulder. “We shall leave you two to your discussion,” she says, then tugs on her husband’s arm and drags him away to speak to other guests.

Rick looks up at Daryl and realizes that he’s still blinking. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to stop, then puts a hand back on his midsection and stares up at the duke, wide-eyed with wonder. “I’m pregnant,” he murmurs.

Daryl frowns slightly, looking confused. “Yes, of course. Is there something wrong? Do I need to fetch a doctor?”

The blinking starts up again. “You… knew?”

“Of course I knew,” Daryl says, smiling, then _he_ blinks. “But you did not?”

“ _No, I did not know I was pregnant_ ,” Rick says, really more gasp than speech. “How… long?”

Daryl shrugs, his eyes starting to sparkle. “I expect since the night in your bedroom.”

Rick’s mouth drops open. “I’m _three months pregnant_?” he hisses. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Daryl chuckles and throws his arm around Rick’s waist, pulling him in close and kissing his forehead, completely uncaring that others in the room might see. “I rather thought you knew. I tried to bring it up a few times, but you seemed reluctant to talk about it, so I thought that you just preferred to be… _private_ about such things.”

Rick frowns, thinking over the last three months. “Well. This certainly explains why you’ve been so enamored with kissing my belly lately.”

Daryl nods, kissing Rick’s forehead again despite the pointed looks they are beginning to get from some of the more conservative members of the gathering. “To know that _this_ ,” he murmurs, putting his hand over Rick’s on his stomach, “is _mine_. To know that _my_ child is growing inside you… well. It is quite a pleasing thought, I must say.”

Rick laughs at that, a little breathlessly. “We’re… going to have a _baby_ ,” he says quietly, reverently.

“We are indeed,” Daryl agrees, then leans in close to Rick’s ear and whispers. “Might I convince you to have a sudden headache and need to be taken home and put to bed? Because I cannot promise that I can keep myself from ravishing you on the sofa over there if we do not leave immediately.”

Rick’s breathless laugh from before morphs into a pink-cheeked giggle. “Lord Dixon, you are _insatiable_ ,” he says, then pastes a frown on his face and reaches up to touch his head. “I do believe I have been stricken by a headache, though. Allow me to make my excuses to Lady Rayborne.”

Daryl grins and kisses Rick’s knuckles again, then heads over to say their goodbyes to Merle and Abraham, who are standing close together by the fireplace, whispering intently as Abraham’s moustache swishes wildly about. Rick walks toward Carol, weaving in and out of little groups of guests with his mind spinning out of control, just barely resisting the urge to plaster his hand on his slightly rounded belly and never move it again.

“You know Lord and Lady Dixon,” a woman is saying to her friend, almost too softly for Rick to hear as he passes by them. “They’re quite enamored with one another.”

“A love match, then?” the woman’s companion asks, and Rick smiles to himself and pauses, looks at the two women and nods.

“Indeed it is,” he says, and he catches Daryl’s eye across the room, thinking about little Carl, who gets to exist after all. Thinking of his family that’s already growing, of Daryl’s eyes and hands and heart, thinking of how happy they’ve been and how happy they will continue to be, with bright-eyed children making the halls of Ashthorpe ring with laughter and joy.

Daryl smiles slowly, sending warmth flooding through Rick’s chest as the room fades away to just the two of them, and Rick hurriedly makes his excuses to Carol and lets Daryl bustle him out the door and into their carriage. And if the driver takes them through Kensington Gardens before depositing them at their townhome, well. The detour does not particularly bother Their Graces, the Duke of Bettsville and Lady Richard Morgan Dixon, his properly _im_ proper little duchess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank my betas one more time... let's hear it for [Michelle_A_Emerlind](http://archiveofourown.org/users/michelle_a_emerlind) and [TWDObsessive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive)! Seriously, I can't thank you guys enough for sticking with me through this fic and making ME stick with it too!
> 
> Also thanks to the [Rickyl Writers' Group](http://rickylwritersgroup.tumblr.com) for inspiration and encouragement, especially [MermaidSheenaz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidSheenaz), [s0urw0lf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/s0urw0lf), and [MaroonCamaro](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MaroonCamaro) who loved this fic from the very beginning. 
> 
> And thanks to YOU. Yes, you, my intrepid readers, who took a chance on a very odd little AU idea and followed it through to the end. I hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> Daryl and Rick's story is done, but I do have two shorter sequels planned... one that follows Abraham's search for love and one that explains why Shane was acting so weird at the wedding. Rickyl won't be the primary pairing in those but don't worry... we'll see them in the background! 
> 
> Thank you again for all the wonderful comments you've left on this story. I told MAE when I first started writing it that I thought it would get maybe ten pity-kudos, tops, and would be otherwise ignored, and I've never been so delighted to be wrong! Ta-ta for now! I love you all!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://skarlatha.tumblr.com)!


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